9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors
by Wolfswind
Summary: A text adaptation of the original game's story that borrows heavily from the existing transcript, with a few story deviations at times.
1. Third Class Cabin

A loud noise startled Junpei awake, and his eyes snapped open. As they adjusted to the light, he realized that he didn't recognize his surroundings.

Junpei, powered by confusion, instantly shot out of bed; only to immediately have his head connect with something metal.

He rolled over and threw out his hand to steady himself, but he found himself groping at empty air.

His balance lost, and his still-fuzzy mind struggling to understand what was going on, Junpei tumbled down to the cold, grey floor.

"OOOOOOWWWCHGODDAMNIT! Gah! What the hell!?"

Junpei glared around the room, still trying to determine where he'd woken up. The fall had shaken the last cobwebs of sleep from his mind, and finally he understood where he'd fallen from.

It was a bed. A 3-level bunk bed, in fact. Junpei had fallen, apparently, from the topmost bunk. His shoulder hurt, his knee hurt, his hip hurt... His entire body hurt. He could feel a bump forming on his forehead, where he'd slammed it against the low ceiling.

He wondered if that bump was the reason he felt his vision wavering a bit, but that seemed unlikely. At first, he thought the tremor that ran through his legs was just another effect of his rude awakening, but as he looked around, he realized it was real... The whole room was shaking.

Was it an earthquake, he wondered. It didn't seem likely. It was shaking far too quickly for an earthquake. Then again, Junpei had no idea what it was, if not an earthquake. He tried to tell himself it was important. Junpei rubbed the growing bump on his head and gingerly climbed to his feet. His balance regained, he finally took his first good look around the room.

"Where... Am I...?" Junpei muttered to himself.

His pain momentarily forgotten in the face of the confusion of his circumstances, Junpei looked around the room once again. Minutes passed while Junpei struggled to get his bearings.

Then, as suddenly as they had begun, the tremors ceased.

A cold silence fell over the room.

From somewhere far away, Junpei could hear the sound of metal squeaking.

He felt his stomach tighten. There were a thousand things the sound could have been, but none of the things he could think of were good.

In an attempt to distract himself, Junpei looked around the room once more.

There was a stove that looked more antique than functional.

The 3-level bunk bed had mattresses that were so thin that they were little more than blankets.

On the other side of the room was an identical bed, and set in the wall between the beds was a slightly dirty iron door.

The first thing Junpei noticed about the door was the number roughly emblazoned across it.

On the surface of the door, in red paint, someone had written a large number "5".

"...Five? What could five mean?" Junpei thought.

Suspicious, and still utterly confused, Junpei approached the door, slowly.

Standing, at last, in front of the door, Junpei grabbed hold of the L-shaped handle. A push yielded no movement, and a pull the same result.

A few more tries cemented the truth in Junpei's mind: it wouldn't open. It didn't matter how much he pushed and shoved. The handle wouldn't budge.

Next to the door was an odd-looking device that reminded Junpei of a card reader.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that the odd-looking device was keeping the door shut.

Junpei knocked hard on the door and yelled out.

"Hey! Hello? Is anyone there!? Open the door!"

But there was no response.

Junpei threw his left fist into the door, and it was only at that moment did he realize something.

"What the hell is this..."

He wasn't really sure what else to say. On his left wrist was a bracelet of a sort he'd never seen before. In the center was a large LCD display. It looked like nothing else so much as a watch, but it clearly wasn't that. After all, it showed only a single number.

"Five... That's the same as the door..."

True, the numbers were the same, but he had no idea what that might mean. All he knew was that it was strange, and new, and he wanted it off. Junpei flipped his hand over, as if to remove a watch, but... The other side of the bracelet was solid: no buckle, no clasp, nothing.

He sighed, and flipped the thing back over. There were a number of rivets around the rim of the face. Perhaps... He pushed them, but nothing happened. On a watch, they might be dials for adjusting date or time, but on this bracelet they did nothing.

Junpei was at a loss. What was he going to do?

Growing more desperate, he began to tug at it.

"Urrrrng! Damn! Ugh! It's no good... Damn thing won't come off!"

A steel ring ran from the face, around Junpei's wrist, and back in to the face. He wouldn't be pulling the bracelet off any time in the near future.

"What the hell is the deal with this thing?!"

Frustration and desperation were beginning to mix as the reality of the situation began to dawn fully on Junpei. So much was happening, and none of it made sense. Junpei felt as though he were about to explode.

"Where am I!? And why the hell am I here!? Why! Why!? What the hell happened to me!?" Junpei cried out, but there was none to hear him.

It was at that moment that he noticed the window. The window was round, rimmed in riveted brass, like a window from an early 20th century ship.

"What...? Wait... Am I in a ship?"

Junpei walked slowly toward the window. He could see nothing beyond it but thick, impenetrable darkness. Junpei squinted, trying to see something...anything...

It was at that moment-

"What the-!? ...You gotta be kidding me! Wh-What the hell is going on here?!"

A crack split the glass of the window, and for a moment Junpei stared at it. Then the window burst, and water began to pour into the room.

"WHAT THE HELL! GODDAMN IT!" Junpei yelled, and spun around.

His feet slipping on the water already coming through the window, he ran for

the door.

"Hey! Anyone! Is anyone there!? C'mon, if you're there, say something!"

There was no reply.

As Junpei screamed, and pounded on the door, the water began to rise. It was now ankle-deep on the floor, and rising quickly toward his knees. Things were not looking good for Junpei. Not good at all. He needed to find a way out, and fast.

Junpei ran a hand across his forehead, brushing the sweat out of his eyes, and looked around the room. His eyes first landed on the bulletin board that hung above the sink. Above it was an odd looking card. Junpei took it and immediately examined it. It was a rectangular card with two distinctive halves, one with blue shapes, and the other with red shapes, and a line beneath them that ended with an arrow pointing to the right. He had no possible idea what this could signify, so he hurriedly shoved the small piece of paper into his pocket.

Even though he was under a time limit, Junpei knew he had to take things slow and think things through. Rushing would get him nowhere. Despite that, there was a part of his brain that screamed "GET OUT OF THERE!" as loudly as it could. His heart rate was at an all time high, he had never experienced such danger before. He paused for a moment, and steeled himself. He wasn't about to let his own mind be a room he had to escape as well.

Something in the corner of the room caught his eye, something he had not noticed before. Carefully he ran across the slick floor over to it. It was a mirror, with a piece of tape holding a red key up in the center. Junpei grabbed the key and shoved it into his pocket. He intended to leave immediately, but... Something stopped him. His reflection stared back at him from the mirror, but he had scarcely recognized himself.

"What's up with my face..."

His confusion was well-justified. His face was drawn and pale, and the dark circles under his eyes made him look as though he was nearly dead.

"Man... What the hell happened to me? How did I end up here...?"

Even as he said it, something in his mind opened, and a memory bobbed to the surface. It was the last thing Junpei remembered before waking up in the strange room.

It was past midnight when he came home. Junpei shuffled up the stairs, and opened the door to apartment 201. Inside was his apartment. A small, one-bedroom affair, that ran him about $630 a month. He moved into it when he entered college, and so far he'd been there for 3 years and 7 months.

He stepped inside and turned on the lights. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling blinked and flickered slowly to life, as if waking from a deep slumber. Their cold light illuminated the landscape he'd come home to so many times before... Everything was as he'd left it. The magazines piled up in the corner. The text books collecting dust. The CD cases covering the floor. The jeans and t-shirt he'd worn the day before, then tossed onto the floor.

There was one thing that didn't belong, however. There was a breeze. Breaths of cold night air wafted into his apartment, carrying the smells of autumn with them. The white curtain framing his window swayed gently in the wind. Huh. That's weird... Did I leave that open... Junpei walked toward the window, trying to remember if he'd closed it or not before he left.

One of the panes was hanging open. He stuck his head out, and looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Junpei shrugged. He must have just left it open earlier.

He closed the window. Then it happened.

Junpei turned, and found himself face to mask with a man dressed all in black. The man wore a deep hood, and a bulky gas mask-his face was entirely hidden. Junpei tried to scream, but all he could manage was a strangled croak. He tried to step toward the man, but his legs could no longer support his weight. Junpei collapsed to the floor, a crumpled heap of limbs, like a discarded puppet.

Too late, he noticed the white smoke that was quickly filling his apartment. A small object, shaped distressingly like a grenade, sat on the floor in front of his face, hissing. The white smoke poured out of it at an incredible rate. The smoke had grown so thick that the details of Junpei's apartment began to fade into the white haze. He could feel his mind begin to fade as well, a white haze that was not the smoke creeping into the edges of his vision.

"Consider this a privilege. You have been chosen." A rasping voice wormed its way out of the gas mask. It was cold and harsh, and distorted in some way Junpei couldn't put his finger on.

"You are going to participate in a game. The [Nonary Game]. It is a game...where you will put your life on the line."

That was the last thing Junpei remembered. The white smoke overpowered him, the masked man faded from his vision, and he felt his consciousness fall away into the white mist.

"That's right! That guy with the gas mask! That son of a bitch must have taken me here!"

As to who the man was, or might have been, Junpei had no idea. Indeed, he wasn't even sure that his assailant had been a man. The voice had been cold and mechanical-likely passed through a voice-changer-and the body had been covered in a thick cloak.

Who was the man in the mask? "You have been chosen." Junpei remembered that much, but... What it might mean... That was beyond him.

Junpei had no idea where he was, or why he was there. There was only one thing from his memory that seemed important...

"You are going to participate in a game. The [Nonary Game]. It is a game...where you will put your life on the line."

"The Nonary Game, huh... What the hell is a Nonary Game!? Goddamnit!" With a yell, Junpei drove his fist into the mirror.

A splash of water against Junpei's leg reminded him that time wasn't on his side. He quickly overturned everything in the room in a desperate attempt of finding some sort of clue. His efforts rewarded him with a screwdriver, a blue key, another card like he found on the bulletin board, and a picture of a ship.

He firstly examined the picture frame and saw it was screwed in. Using his newfound screwdriver he made quick work of it and was left with just the picture. The ship in it resembled an old cruise liner from a long time ago. He flipped it around, and saw more shapes like the ones on the cards, only now they were paired with numbers.

Junpei now moved to the one object he left untouched earlier. A blue suitcase that laid upon the bottom bunk. On the side was a row of numbers and a keyhole. He stuck in the blue key and twisted. Nothing. He needed both the combination and the key to open this thing.

Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the cards from earlier. Blue one one half, red on the other, and vice versa for the other. Perhaps the line below was indicating one begins left, then works to the right? He continued with this train of thought, and decoded the cards with the picture. His solution was 0263. After entering the combination in he twisted the key once more, and the briefcase was unlocked.

The briefcase had two indentations for objects to be put inside, but only one was filled. It was a file of some sort, and as Junpei looked through it he found a number of blue plastic cards inside. The file also contained instructions.

"Compute a [digital root] with the following steps: First, add all the numbers in question to one another. If you end up with something greater than a single-digit number, add the digits to one another. (For instance, if you have a double-digit number, add the number in the [tens place] to the number in the [ones place].) Keep adding digits in this manner until you have a single digit answer. That final single digit is your [digital root]. EX: The [digital root] of (678) would be... 6 + 7 + 8 = 21 ? 2 + 1 = [3] Therefore, the [digital root] of (678) is [3]. EX: The [digital root] of (1234) would be... 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 ? 1 + 0 = [1] Therefore, the [digital root] of (1234) is [1]."

At first Junpei was confused at how this could help him, but perhaps he was meant to find the digital root of a number with these cards?

He went to the last area of the room. A closet-like object with a curtain covering its contents. He flung open the curtain and found a red briefcase sitting inside. Assuming it was like the previous one, all he need do is decode the red portion of the paper with the picture and use the red key. Junpei repeated himself and turned the key, hearing a small click that he knew it meant it was now unlocked. Red cards laid on the interior, exactly like the blue ones from the other case.

The water was now at Junpei's shin, but he believed his work here was done. He waded over to the exit door with the keycard and splayed his plastic cards out like a fan.

"Digital root... The digital root of five?" Junpei thought to himself. His watch read five, and so did his door. He ran a quick mental calculation on what would give him the digital root of five with the instructions he read from the file.

"1, 6, 7. One plus six is seven, and seven plus seven is fourteen, four plus one is five! The digital root of five is 167!"

Junpei ran the three cards through the machine and pulled the lever. The door creaked with the sound of metal on metal, and slowly opened.

 _AN:Inspiration came to right this story because of how great I think 999's story is, and how it could work in written form. As it is a visual novel a large amount of text already exists, so by just using the transcript that's already there saves a lot of work, but there's several parts I wanted to add that didn't wind up happening or didn't have a text alternative, like the room escapes. Forewarn that things may deviate a little bit._


	2. Doors 4 and 5

Accompanied by a wall of angry water, Junpei shot out of the room and into the opposing wall.

Gasping to catch his breath, he looked around. He was in a narrow hallway. The water that had followed him out of the room was rapidly pouring out of the door. It flowed quickly down the hallway, and slammed into the foot of the short flight of stairs. Just 5 steps in fact. And at the top of this short staircase...

"A door! Another door!" Junpei leapt up the stairs, straight for the door.

The door burst open, and Junpei exploded out of it, only to freeze in his tracks. What other possible response could there have been to what he saw?

"Wha...what the hell...?"

His voice trailed off, and all he could do was stare.

A polished floor stretched out before him, ornate staircases rising up from the edges, each one of them equidistant from the others. The stairs and pillars were solid wood, and Art Nouveau embellishments and decorations covered the walls and pillars.

It looked like nothing so much as the entrance to a luxurious mansion from the early 1900s.

Junpei couldn't help but wonder...

Was he really in a ship?

The water quickly filling the hallway behind him suggested that yes, he was. As he looked, a fresh wave rolled out of the room he'd been in, gathering speed as it moved toward the stairs.

"Yeah, that's what I thought... This is totally a bo-Wait, what the hell?! A wave?! Sh-Shit! I gotta get outta here!" Junpei spun around, his wet shoes squeaking in protest on the polished floor, and ran toward the tremendous staircase in front of him.

As he ran, he glanced quickly at the plates mounted on the wall, denoting the decks of the ship. He took the stairs 2 at a time, not entirely sure where he would find himself. Just as he began to wonder where, in fact, the stairs did lead...

Junpei saw another person out of the corner of his eye. He stopped short, nearly tripping over the next stair, and looked. It wasn't just 1 person he'd seen...

On the landing to the left of the stairs, there were 4 people staring at him... And on the right side, 3 more. All told, there were 7 of them.

It looked as though they had been on their way down the stairs. They'd stopped short when they saw Junpei, their eyes wide. He'd done the same of course, and now they stood there staring at one another.

Junpei didn't move, one foot placed awkwardly on the next step, in the middle of a stride.

Who were these people?

This entire interaction lasted only a matter of seconds. The woman spoke to Junpei, and time began to move again.

"I guess there's another one of us now."

The woman was dressed, Junpei thought, rather like a dancer. Her clothes covered very little, and her prodigious jewelry little more.

"Hey! You! Come on! Hurry!" With no further ceremony, she ran, straight past Junpei and toward the doors behind him.

The sudden proximity of a woman with such striking assets left Junpei momentarily stunned...

...But the others wasted no time, and quickly followed the strange woman.

The first to pass Junpei was a young man with silver hair. He threw a quick glance in Junpei's direction as he ran, muttering...

"Hmph. One of us, huh...?"

Following him was an older man, his face calm and without fear. Soft wrinkles sprouted from his eyes, and he came close enough as he passed for Junpei to see wisps of grey in his hair. His composure and shock of hair struck

Junpei as rather like that of an elderly lion.

"Going up won't do you any good! There are 2 doors, but neither of them will open!"

The next to speak was a girl with pink hair and a high voice.

"Come on! Aren't you coming? You gotta hurry!" Her small hand was wrapped around the wrist of another man...

His eyes were closed, almost as though he were sleeping. His features were graceful, almost serene... And he was dressed rather elegantly for someone his age. Something about his posture seemed very refined, and Junpei couldn't help feeling he was noble and dignified, somehow. He'd certainly never seen one, but this man seemed like what Junpei had always imagined a prince would be like.

"That's 9 of us, then. "All of the cards are in hand."

What does "All of the cards are in hand" mean, he wondered. Junpei opened his mouth to ask what the other man had meant, but the girl with pink hair rushed past him, and they were gone.

He turned just in time to see 2 more people running toward him. One of them had hair like a bird's nest, and looked as though a stiff breeze might topple him... ...And the other was a veritable mountain of a man. The scrawny one said nothing, and scuttled past Junpei as though he were running from something...

"Hey! What the hell're you just standing there for!? Didn't you hear him?! The doors on A Deck are no good! We gotta check the doors on B Deck! Got it!? Now go!"

Before he had a chance to respond, the man laid a massive hand on Junpei's shoulder. With no more effort than Junpei would have used to brush aside a fly, the man shoved him out of the way.

Thrown off-balance by the man and recent events, it took Junpei a few steps to get his bearings.

He finally regained his balance and looked up, at what the other 7 had been running toward.

There were 2 pairs of large iron doors set into the wall in front of him. They looked quite sturdy, and each had handles jutting from them. Written across the surface of each door in red paint was a number.

The door on the right had a 4.

And the door on the left had a 5.

"They're the same..." The guy Junpei had decided to call Silver was mumbling to himself.

"The room I woke up in had a number on the door, just like that."

"You too, eh." With an arched eyebrow, the lion looked over at Silver.

"My cell was the same. A number upon the door. I opened it, ran down the hallway outside, and found myself in the rather grand room full of stairs, as, I suspect, did the rest of you."

It was as though the floodgates had been opened-they all began to talk at once.

"Me too." "I did too." "Yeah, a door with a number on it."

It soon became clear that each one of them had awoken in a room with a locked door, and solved a puzzle to escape. They'd all ended up in the same room... Almost as though they'd been guided there...

"Yes, we all saw the same thing! That's not important! We need to hurr-" Before the dancer had time to finish-

Silver was already running.

"Ya think I don't know that, lady!?"

He grabbed hold of the door labeled 5 and pulled.

However...

"Fuck! It's not opening! This damn thing won't even budge!"

"Move. You're in the way." The mountain grabbed Silver's shoulder and tossed him aside.

His path cleared, he took a few steps back, then threw himself at the door.

Once... Twice... 3 times... 4 times...

The door shook as his body slammed into it, but showed no signs of breaking or opening. The mountain threw himself at the door again.

Junpei turned toward door 4. Next to the door, on the wall, was a small box. It looked just like the one that he'd seen in his room, next to that door. If it was the same, then...this door was likely locked as well... Still, he had to check. Junpei grabbed a handle and threw all of his weight onto it. It was locked as tight as the door next to it, as he'd suspected.

"Damnit!" Junpei punched the door. It did not respond.

Were these the only doors, he wondered. He'd barely finished the thought when the C Deck plate he'd passed on his way up sprang, unbidden, to his mind.

His body moved before he had time to think. Junpei turned, and ran back toward the stairs. He had scarcely taken a step, when at the top of the stairs, next to an ornate clock embedded in the wall, he saw a person.

It was a girl. She looked to be the same age as Junpei. He froze, unable to look away from her face. He wasn't confounded by her beauty, or something equally silly... No, there was another reason he couldn't take his eyes off the girl. Junpei had seen her somewhere before. He couldn't quite remember where, but he knew... He knew he'd met her before. The girl, too, stared at Junpei, similarly stunned. Her response suggested she'd seen him before as well.

Without saying a word, Junpei walked slowly toward her. She didn't move. It was almost as though she was held in place by some sort of magic spell. As Junpei stepped onto her landing, the spell broke. No sooner had he set his foot down, than the whole ship shook a second time.

"Aah!"

The quake caught the girl unprepared, and she fell. Moving on instinct, Junpei leapt to catch her... Or so he thought.

Her face was far closer than it should have been; mere inches from his own. He was flat on his back, and she had landed squarely on top of him. The girl seemed as confused as he did, and her face suggested she still hadn't fully recovered from seeing him.

For a moment that seemed to stretch for a very long time, they stared at one another. The ship stopped shaking. Everything was quiet. Water could be heard from the bottom of the ship, lapping faintly at walls and ceilings, but eventually that faded as well. The silence was complete, a thick, muffling blanket... At last, the girl opened her mouth.

"Oh my gosh... Is that you, Jumpy!?"

Jumpy... Jumpy... Her words echoed through Junpei's head, and suddenly, his memory returned.

"A-Akane!?"

Why hadn't he realized it before? The girl was Akane Kurashiki. She and Junpei had been friends in childhood,they'd gone to elementary school together for 6 years. But...what was she doing on the ship?

Her soft eyes were only inches away from his own... He could feel the warmth of her face. Feelings he'd thought long-forgotten began to work their way to the surface... He could feel his face heating up.

At that moment...

A speaker crackled to life, and a cold, eerie voice filled the room.

"Welcome aboard. I welcome you all, from the bottom of my heart, to this, my vessel."

With the voice's invasion, the spell between Junpei and Akane was broken, and all hints of burgeoning romance instantly forgotten. They hurriedly untangled themselves from one another, and struggled to their feet.

Their 7 companions had heard the voice as well, and many of their faces had gone pale.

They looked around frantically, desperate to locate the source of the voice. At last they found it... A speaker set in the ceiling.

"I am Zero... The captain of this ship. I am also the person who invited you here."

The voice was harsh, obscured occasionally by the crackle of static... But Junpei recognized it. How could he have forgotten it? It was the same voice he had heard from the man in the gas mask.

"Hey! Asshole! What the hell is this?! C'mon out here! I wanna get a look at you!" Said the man with silver hair.

"What do you mean to do to us?!" Spoke the lion.

"I mean to have you participate in a game. Some of you, I know, are familiar with this game. The Nonary Game. It is a game...where you will put your life on the line."

There was a murmur in the room with several voices speaking. "Nonary Game...?" "What the hell's that?"

The voice continued, implacable.

"The rules of the Nonary Game can be found upon your persons. They are simple rules. Read them."

"Hey... There's something in my pocket... Check this out." Silver reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small slip of paper.

The rest of them reached into their own pockets, and pulled out similar slips of paper. Junpei followed suit, and dug into the pocket of his pants. He felt the tell-tale crumple of paper, slightly damp from his earlier ordeal.

"Hey, I got one too!"

"Then it would seem Zero has seen fit to grace us each with a letter. Would you mind terribly reading it to us, young man?" The lion spoke politely, and with a strong voice.

His request had been delivered to Junpei who, after a short moment of surprise, did as he'd been asked.

"On this ship, you will find a handful of doors emblazoned with numbers. We will call them the numbered doors. The doors in front of you are a pair of the same. The key to opening these numbered doors are the numbered bracelets that each of you possess. Should you total the numbers on your numbered bracelets... and find that the digital root of that number is equal to the number of that door, the door will open. Only those who have opened the door may pass through. There are, however, limits. Only 3-5 people can pass through one numbered door. All those who enter must leave, and all who enter must contribute."

Bracelet, Junpei figured, had to mean the bulky thing on his wrist. He glanced around. It looked like everyone else had one as well, and had come to much the same conclusion.

Junpei continued to read.

"The purpose of the game is simple. Leave this ship alive. It is hidden, but an exit can be found. Seek a way out... Seek a door that carries a 9."Junpei had reached the end of the letter. There was a long moment of silence, and then the speaker crackled to life once more.

"There is one last thing I must tell you. As you have no doubt surmised, this ship has begun to sink. On April 14th, 1912...the famous ocean liner Titanic crashed into an iceberg. After remaining afloat for 2 hours and 40 minutes, it sank beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. I will give you more time. 9 hours. That is the time you will be given to make your escape." The voice finished, and the speaker went silent.

The sound of a bell tolling echoed through the hall. It came from the dance hall adjacent to the stairwell. It took those assembled on the stairs mere moments to trace the sound to an antique clock embedded in the wall. 7...8...9... The sound of the 9th bell faded away. The 10th never came. That meant the time was 9 o'clock. Most likely 9 o'clock in the evening.

When Junpei had peered out the window of his cell, he'd seen nothing but blackness. It had to be nighttime. If that was the case, then they would need to escape by 6 AM the following day.

"Now, it is time. Let our game begin. I wish you all the best of luck." The speaker went silent, and did not speak again.

Silver yelled at the speaker with language coarse enough to embarrass a sailor, but the rest of Junpei's companions were silent, deep in thought. Junpei, too, was consumed by his thoughts. There was a great deal he didn't understand. Who was Zero...? What was the Nonary Game? Why had he chosen to make them part of it? Why had any of them been chosen? But one question was foremost on his mind...

Akane. They hadn't seen one another since elementary school. Why had she appeared now? Coincidence...? No. That seemed impossible. There had to be a reason. He didn't know what it might be, but... There had to be a reason.

"Very well!" The lion's voice seemed oddly loud in the silence.

"Standing around here won't do us any good. Best we get moving, don't you

think?"

"Get moving?"

"Are you planning to open the numbered doors?"

"H-Hey! Wait!"

"Don't tell me you're actually going to do what this...this Zero says?!"

The room was quickly filling with the voices of everyone at once.

"No, no, that's not what I mean." The lion shook his head, mildly annoyed.

"I'm saying, let's find another way. After all, we haven't really examined this place yet."

"We...what...?"

Their separate investigations finished, all 9 people returned to where they'd left one another.

The result of all their work was...nothing. They were completely sealed in. Their hard work had not gone completely to waste, however. They had learned a number of things as they'd scoured the parts of the ship they could reach.

It seemed that they were confined to decks A through C.C Deck was as far down as they would be able to go, however. The reason being... That D Deck was completely submerged. Strangely, however, the water had risen no higher than D Deck. The flow seemed to have been stopped somehow, as evidenced by the surface of the water on D Deck, which was as smooth as glass. The prince knelt down and gently drew his hand across it.

"Perhaps this Zero fellow has used some sort of remote control to seal a watertight door lower down... He said that our time limit was 9 hours. In other words, this water won't rise for 9 hours."

"Then you're sayin' we won't sink 'til then?" The mountain spoke up.

"Well, that may be a little too optimistic. No point to wishful thinking."

There were 3 metal doors on C Deck. A single door stood off to the side, with 2 more on the wall facing the central staircase. None of them had numbers, or verification devices. They were, however, locked like the other doors. No matter how much they pushed and shoved, the doors refused to move. The mountain and the lion threw themselves against them a few times, but to no avail.

The door in the back had a keyhole. Just above it was a strange mark in the shape of a circle surrounding a dot. There were 2 other doors on C Deck as well, but it was clear they were elevators, as each had a button next to it with an upside-down triangle.

They tried pushing the button. No response. Apparently there was no power running to the elevators. To the left of the elevator doors was a card reader. The card reader also had a strange mark on it. It looked like a lower-case "h" with a dash drawn across the upper stem of the "h". Junpei stared at it for a while.

"This is the symbol of Saturn. It's an astrological symbol." Akane informed Junpei.

"Then...the mark on the other door..." Junpei was never too knowledgable in mythology and the like.

"I think that was the Sun symbol."

They had seen the same symbols on A Deck. There was a door on either side of the stairs. The one on the left had a keyhole with a similar symbol engraved on it.

"This is an Earth symbol. The horizontal line symbolizes the equator and the vertical one represents the Prime Meridian."

Junpei looked up at the ceiling. There was a great circle cut in it, perhaps for a skylight or a glass dome, but it had been filled with a gargantuan metal plate. The metal looked very solid. Anything short of an explosive charge was unlikely to damage it. There were several windows along both sides of the ship-or at least there had been. They, too, were covered with metal plates. In other words...

"We're trapped. All the exits go nowhere..." Junpei was not happy.

The girl with pink hair spoke up.

"Well, I'm sure they go somewhere. We just can't open them."

Then the mountain spoke.

"You don't know that. For all we know, they just open into walls, or take us in circles."

The prince did not agree.

"No, I'm sure they go somewhere. Otherwise, what point would there be? And we can open them. Well, 2 of them, at least."

"You mean the numbered doors..."

All eyes turned toward the doors with numbers on them. The atmosphere in the room grew tense.

"H-Hey... Wait a minute. I think I said this earlier, but I don't think we should do that." The dancer moved in front of the doors, as if to block them.

"We'd have to be crazy to open these doors. If we do that, we're doing exactly what Zero wants us to do."

Suddenly, everyone began to speak at once. "I agree!" "I don't! That's a terrible idea!" "We should keep going." "We should stay here!" "We don't have any other way to open any of these doors." "We should just wait. Someone's bound to come find us!" "We don't have time for that!" "In 8 and a half hours, this ship is going to sink!"

The clamor of voices made it next to impossible to determine who was saying what. Their arguments grew more and more intense, until people were shouting and screaming at one another. Junpei had remained silent, but at last he could take no more.

"Hey! Shut up!" They fell silent, and all eyes turned to Junpei. He felt each stare burning into him, but he refused to flinch.

"Before we try and decide where we're going to go, there's something else we oughta do."

"We need to exchange don't know anything about each other. I want to know who you guys are... Who you are, where you came from, why you ended up here... Don't tell me you aren't curious too...?"

They were silent. Some of them looked the other way, or bit their lip, or crossed their arms and stared at the ceiling. But one of them spoke up. It was Akane.

"I agree. I think Jumpy is right."

The mountain gave her an odd look.

"Jumpy...?"

"Oh! I'm sorry. I'm talking about him... I just call him Jumpy. His name is Junpei..." She pointed toward Junpei.

"We're childhood friends. We went to the same elementary school..."

"Wait! Stop! Don't tell us stuff we didn't ask you about! Zero's probably watchin' us right now. What're you gonna do if he's listenin' in?!"

"Would...that be bad...?"

"Hell yeah it would! We don't know how much that bastard knows about us. Maybe he just picked a bunch'a random people to kidnap. If that is the case, then it'd be dangerous for us to let him know too much. If Zero knows who we are, he could go after our families. Maybe he'd tell us he had 'em to get us to do stuff, you know?"

"But...we still need to know what our names are... It's going to be hard to talk to each other if we don't have names."

"All right, then why don't we have code names?" To him, apparently, it seemed like the obvious solution.

"Code names?"

"Yeah, we'll each pick somethin'. Like... I'll be [Seven]."

"Seven? Why are you Seven?"

It seemed a fair question. The mountain stuck out his left arm.

"'Cause this bracelet number says (7)."

"Oh, I get it. Yeah, that's a good idea. All right, I'm gonna be [Santa]. Any of you chumps know Japanese? No? Well, "san" means "3". So I'll be Santa. You know like Santa Claus. Fits don'tcha think?" The silver haired man spoke after giving his bracelet a quick look.

"Then your bracelet number..."

"Yeah, it's got a 3 on it. Good job, grandpa."

Just like the mountain had done, Silver thrust out his left hand. Sure enough, the face of his bracelet read 3.

"Very well then. I'll go next, shall I? My bracelet number is 1. Given that, I think [Ace] seems appropriate." And thus the lion was now Ace.

"I'll be [Lotus], then. As I'm sure you all know, it has 8 petals. Which means, of course, that my bracelet number is... 8." The dancer said, with a tone indicating she didn't care too much.

"I would appreciate it if you would call me [Snake]. My bracelet number is 2. Since Ace has chosen cards, then I choose dice-"snake-eyes", clearly. Which is particularly relevant, given that I am blind." The prince stated nonchalantly.

Blind? Really? He'd kept his eyes closed during their entire ordeal, which had suggested something strange, but to hear it said so casually... It was something of a surprise.

Everyone seemed a little nervous at the prince's proclamation, but no one seemed to know how to react to it. There was one person, however, who didn't seem to be surprised in the least. The girl with pink hair.

"I want to be [Clover]. You know, like a 4-leaf clover... Good luck, right?" Looking almost bored, she held out her left hand. The face of her bracelet showed the number (4).

They'd come around to Junpei. He held out his bracelet...

"All right, my number's (5), so my code name is gonna be-"

"Why have one? It's not like there's any point to it now." The dancer cut him off in mid-sentence.

"I mean... We all know your name already. You're Junpei."

"O-Oh..."

They all nodded.

Akane stepped forward, nervously.

"Then you should all call me by my name too. Because...I mean... It doesn't seem..."

"It doesn't seem fair to "Jumpy"?" "You're thinking it's not cool for you to hide your name after you told us his?" Both Seven and Santa had grasped the same thing.

Akane fidgeted awkwardly.

Junpei decided he had to do something.

"What's your bracelet number?"

"It's 6..." She hesitated for a moment, then held out her left hand.

As she'd claimed, the bracelet's face showed a 6.

Junpei looked at it for a moment and thought.

"All right then... Why don't we call you [June]?"

"June?"

"Yeah, you know... It's the 6th month of the year. So you're June."

"Jumpy..." Akane kneaded her hands and looked up at Junpei, uncertain.

"Are you good with that?" He smiled back at her, reassuringly.

She thought about it for a few more minutes, then seemed to come to a decision and gave Junpei a small nod.

Their names decided, Junpei ran over them quickly in his head.

(1) was [Ace].

(2) was [Snake].

(3) was [Santa].

(4) was [Clover].

(5) was [Junpei's] number.

Akane was (6), and Junpei had given her the code name of [June].

(7) was [Seven].

And (8) was [Lotus].

That meant that 8 of them, including Junpei, had revealed their bracelet numbers. But there was still 1 person left... He was the man with glasses and hair like a bird's nest.

He hadn't said anything since they'd met on the stairs, and he didn't look like the sort of person who was inclined to conversation. His skin was pale, his breathing was heavy, and he was soaked with nervous sweat. His behavior seemed very suspicious, or perhaps simply emotionally unstable. It was difficult to tell. Whatever the case, it seemed clear that he had only a fingertip's-worth of a grip on his sanity.

The girl with pink hair, [Clover], walked up to him, slowly. She put her hands on her hips and eyed him suspiciously.

"What number are you?"

He didn't answer.

His bloodshot eyes twitched from person to person, and his breath came in hot pants.

"Hey, I'm talking to you..."

The man licked his dry lips with a shaking tongue and spoke with a voice like old paper.

"I-I-Isn't it o-obvious? There are 9 people here. A-A-A-And you know who numbers 1 through 8 are. I'm th-the only one left."

"So you're 9?"

"Y-Y-Y-Yeah."

He extended a trembling arm. The bracelet did indeed say (9). Clover looked at it contemptuously.

"What's your code name?"

"C-C-C-Code...n-name?"

"What do you want us to call you? We all made up names. You should too."

"I-I-I-I-I d-don't need one."

"Why not?"

"B-B-B-Because I'm n-n-not going to stay here. ...With y-you." He took a shuddering breath and exhaled.

Clover looked at him with something very like disgust.

"You've got some sorta plan?"

"I-I do."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Y-Y-Y-You sure you w-want to know?"

"Yeah...?"

"A-All right. Let me sh-show you. I-I-I-I'm going to do this!"

By the time they realized what he was doing, it was too late to stop him. The man's body moved like a snake's. In the blink of an eye, he had slid around behind her, and wrapped his arm around her waist.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing!? Santa leapt forward, toward Clover and the 9th Man.

He was halfway there, when-

"S-Stay back!" Suddenly the man's hand dove into his pocket. It came back out with a knife. A pocketknife. He held it to Clover's pale, quivering neck.

"I-I-If you g-get any closer-! I-I'll cut her open!"

Santa skidded to a halt. He snarled at the scrawny man with the knife and gritted his teeth.

"Y-Yes, that's right..."

The man's smile was neither friendly nor reassuring. Sweat poured down his neck, soaking the collar of his shirt.

"Clover...are you all right?" Snake's voice sounded oddly concerned.

"Y-Yeah... I'm fine..." Her voice shook, making her words even less convincing.

Two voices immediately yelled at the same time. It was Seven and Junpei.

"What're you gonna do to her, you sick son of a bitch?"

"What the hell are you trying to do?!"

"I-I told you... This is my plan... D-Don't worry... I-I'm not going to d-do anything to her... If she just does what I t-tell her to, I'll let her go." He started to move backward, slowly, keeping his grip on Clover.

Keeping their distance, Junpei and the others followed. Eventually, the man reached the wall. He gave a start as his back touched it, then glanced around quickly and spoke.

"V-V-Verify..."

"Huh?"

"The left. Look on your left. D-Do you see the device on the wall? P-Place your hand on the scanner panel, the round part."

"What if I don't?"

The man's nostrils flared and he looked like he was about to choke.

"A-A-A-Are you an idiot?! W-W-What do you think?! I c-c-could slit your throat right now! I'll kill you if I have to. A-All I need is your bracelet. Just do it! D-Do it now!" He pressed the knife against Clover's neck, hard.

Slowly, she stretched her left hand out toward the device. Her back was to it, and she had to feel around for a moment before she found the circular panel. It made a cold, electronic noise, and on the display above her hand, an asterisk appeared.

So that's how it works, Junpei thought to himself. By placing one's palm on what the 9th Man had called the "scanner panel", the user's bracelet number would be entered into the device.

Junpei shifted his eyes to the door itself.

The number on it was 5. The 9th Man seemed to know a little more about the device's operation than he should. How had he known exactly what to do?

"Good... Good, you're done. N-N-Next..."

His blood-shot eyes crept from person to person until finally... They stopped on the lion-[Ace].

"You, right? You're the one with the number (1) bracelet, right?"

"Yes. I am. So?"

"Th-Then y-you're next... Just verify your number like this little b-brat did."

Ace remained still.

"What are you doing?! D-Do it! D-Don't you care what h-happens to her?!"

"O-Okay, okay. Just calm down..." Ace held up his hands, palms out.

The 9th Man jerked his chin toward the device. Slowly, cautiously, Ace moved toward the device. After what seemed like an agonizing eternity, he reached it.

"Now... Verify."

Ace nodded and placed his hand on the scanner panel. The device beeped again, and a 2nd asterisk appeared.

Now the device had Clover and Ace's numbers. (4) and (1).

4 + 1 = 5

The same as the number written on the door. But it wouldn't open just yet...

The door needed at least 1 more person.

Who would that be?

"G-G-G-Get back..."His voice shook, but the knife he held to Clover's throat made his words a

command.

Ace took 2, then 3, steps back.

"No! Farther! More than that! Go all the way back!"

Slowly, Ace did what he was told. The 9th Man's lips curled into a cruel, twisted smile. That was when Junpei understood his plan. Clover's (4) and Ace's (1)... Added to the 9th Man's (9)... 4 + 1 + 9 = 14 ? 1 + 4 = [5] In other words...

"Hehe... Hehehe... Ehehehehehehehehe! Th-Th-Thank God you were all so c-cooperative! Now I can get out of this n-nightmare!" He pressed his own hand against the scanner panel. A 3rd asterisk appeared on the screen. He dropped his hand to the lever on the side of the device and pulled. The door opened with a heavy, metallic groan. He let go of Clover.

"Wait!" Junpei leapt toward the 9th Man, but he wasn't fast enough. The man shoved Clover and hopped through the door.

"O-O-Okay, have a good one, guys. I'm going off ahead now. Well then... Goodbye..." He raised his hand and waved, a twisted smirk on his face. Then he was gone. The door ground shut with a dull clang of metal on metal.

"Clover! Are you all right!?" Snake ran to Clover's side as she lay on the floor.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine." She climbed unsteadily to her feet, and once there, leaned heavily on Snake's shoulder for support.

Junpei ran to the door. The others followed him. Several pairs of hands grabbed hold of the handles and pulled. They grunted and strained, but...

"Shit! It won't budge!"

That was when [Lotus], the dancer, spoke. Her voice was quiet.

"Do you hear something...?"

"Like...what?"

"Like some sort of...beeping..."

Junpei pressed his ear against the cold metal of the door. The others did the same.

"You're right... I can hear it too."

Then they heard something else. It was the 9th Man.

"Shit! Why isn't it stopping?! Goddamnit! Y-Y-You l-lied!"

Lied...?

"Th-Th-This wasn't supposed to happen! This is wrong! This is wrong!" His voice shook with fear.

Safe on the outside, they stepped back from the door and looked at one another.

"What is happening in there...?" Ace looks bewildered.

"O-O-O-Open the door! Please! I'm begging you! Help me! Please, get me out of here! Get me out of here!"

Junpei grabbed hold of the device. He slammed his hand on the scanner panel. Nothing happened. Why didn't it register him?! He looked at the display where the asterisks had shown up. It said "ENGAGED".

"A-Ah... Oh my God, oh my God, there's no time left...! Listen! I was lied to! He lied to me! He put me in here! It was him! He killed me! It was him! A...Aahh... Aaahhhh... Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaght-!"

The explosion rocked the room. Instinctively, they ducked, then stood up slowly when they realized there was no danger.

No one spoke.

Silence filled the room.

In that silence, the electronic tone that echoed across the room sounded as loud as a gunshot. All eyes turned toward it. It had come from the device mounted next to the door. The display changed from ENGAGED to VACANT.

"Let's see if we can open it..." [Seven]-the mountain-swallowed hard.

Junpei nodded and placed his hand on the scanner panel. A red asterisk appeared on the LCD panel. The device had registered Junpei's bracelet number: (5). His was not enough, however. At least 2 more people were needed.

Junpei asked...

"Ace, Lotus... You think you could give me a hand here?"

The pun was a little too on-the-nose, but the mood was still grim. Both Ace and Lotus lifted their left hands silently. He verified, and she followed suit.

5 + 1 + 8 = 14 ? 1 + 4 = [5]

They'd fulfilled the conditions. If they were to pull the lever on the side...

"Are you guys ready? I'm gonna open it." Junpei grabbed the lever and looked back over his shoulder.

They stiffened and nodded.

Junpei nodded back, and set his mouth in a grim line.

Then he slowly lowered the lever... There was a metallic groan, and the door slide open. A breath of air drifted out of it, carrying a stench that nearly made them gag. Junpei grimaced and put a hand over his mouth.

"Oh my God..."

"Good God..."

Lotus and Ace shuddered.

Seven grunted.

"Whoa... That's...pretty bad..."

Even Santa's voice shook.

"He...He blew up..."

It appeared that Santa was right.

The hallway on the other side of the door was splattered with chunks of torn flesh and dark, red blood.

"Aaaaaiiiii!" The shriek echoed across the room.

It had come from June. Then her strength left her and she dropped. As Junpei turned to catch her, the door groaned shut. She crumpled to the floor.

"June! You okay?!" Junpei dropped to his knees and put his arm around her shoulders.

That was when he noticed... Her whole body was feverish. She was radiating intense heat...

"What the hell?! Where'd this fever come from?"

June didn't answer. Her face looked like wax, and her whole body began to shake.

"All right, let's just rest for a minute, okay? You think you can walk?"

She nodded weakly. Junpei lifted June to her feet, and guided her to a nearby chair. As gently as he could, he set her down in it.

"How are you feeling? Are you all right?"

She nodded, and as she did, a single, huge tear rolled down the side of her face.

"Why... Why did this happen..." Her voice cracked, broken by misery and grief and choked by sobs.

"Why did this happen..."

Junpei spun around.

"Do any of you know what the fuck is going on here?! Who's Zero?! What's this "Nonary Game"!? C'mon! Anybody? Anything?! What the hell is going on?! What are we doing here?!"

No one spoke.

Ace, Snake, Santa, Clover, Seven, and Lotus...

They simply stood there, 7 pairs of downcast eyes and 7 grim lines for mouths. June's body shook with silent sobs. They slowed, as the minutes ticked by, and eventually they stopped.

Then suddenly, in the cold, heavy silence that had enveloped them like a thick fog, a bell began to ring. The clock in the central hall. 7...8...9...10 times... And then, on the 10th ring, it stopped. The sound of the bell faded away into silence.

"It's 10 o'clock, then." Ace said what each one of them had been thinking.

"That means it's been an hour since Zero's little announcement." Seven's deep voice echoed across the room.

"Fuck! I've had enough of this crap!" Santa leapt to his feet, his fists clenched.

"How long are we gonna pussyfoot around like this?! We've only got 8 hours until this time limit Zero was going on about is up! Let's get goin' already! Go! Go!"

Santa's outburst fell on deaf ears. No one seemed to agree with him. They stared back at him, their eyes blank and their faces tired. Finally, Lotus spoke.

"No. I refuse. I'm not going to end up like him."

"Him? You mean the 9th Man?"

"Of course. Who else?"

In his mind's eye, Junpei saw the corpse again. The dark, reddish-black pool of blood... The scattered pieces of flesh... Organs strewn across the floor like the blossoming of a grotesque flower... The explosion that had torn through his body had been powerful. The 9th Man's neck had been twisted at an odd angle. Junpei suspected the detonation had thrown him against the wall. Half of his face was crushed, and the other half was covered in blood. Most of his abdomen had been emptied, either by the explosion, or by gravity. He had landed on his back, and stark white ribs jutted up out of his chest, like the legs of some sort of macabre crab.

Junpei felt something flip in his stomach.

"I think he just...screwed up."

Eyebrows went up, and Santa continued.

"He probably set off some sorta trap, and that killed him. I'm not gonna screw up like that! I'm gettin' outta here alive!"

"Hehe...hehe... Ahahahahahahaha!" Whatever Snake was laughing at, Santa did not find particularly humorous.

"What's so goddamn funny!?"

"Oh, my apologies... You were just... So very confident! I couldn't help myself."

"What the fuck!?"

"I think you've mistaken the situation."

"Huh?"

"The 9th Man's death. It had nothing to do with a trap. Or at least not the sort of trap you imagine it did."

"Then...?"

"He broke one of Zero's rules. That was why he died. Quite simple if you think about it."

Santa gave Snake a perplexed look.

"You still don't...? All right. How about you take a moment, and think back to what Zero said. Specifically, what did he say about the number of people?"

"He said "Only [3-5] people can pass through one numbered door...Right?"

"And after that...? You've forgotten the relevant part. What did Zero say?"

Santa furrowed his brow in thought.

Junpei thought back...

"All those who enter must leave, and all who enter must contribute.I think it was something like that... Whatever it was, it means that groups of less than 3 or more than 5 can't go through."

"That is correct. A gold star for you, Junpei." Snake inclined his head toward Junpei.

"The 9th Man, however, broke that rule. He tried to pass through a numbered door by himself. That was why he was executed."

"Then Zero's watchin' us from somewhere... Makin' sure we don't break any rules..." Seven pondered.

"Oh, I'm not so sure of that."

"Why not?"

"Because this execution system is entirely automatic. You didn't notice?"

"There's no need for him to monitor us."

"Wadda you mean?"

Snake looked at Seven with what could only be described as pity and sighed.

"Very well. I see it must be me who tells you. I've waited long enough, I suppose. I had hoped Zero might spare me the trouble, but... That seems increasingly unlikely."

He couldn't see them, of course, but perhaps Snake sensed the confused eyes upon him. When Ace spoke, he gave words to everyone else's thoughts.

"Do you know something?!"

"Well, I know a great many things, but... Yes."

"What is it you know?!"

"Here."

Snake removed a card from the pocket of his jacket. With a flourish, he presented it to Ace, who took a close look at it and spoke.

"Come on, now. What's the point of giving me this?"

"Gimme that." Santa snatched the card from Ace, but his expression of disgust quickly turned to one of confusion.

"Huh? The hell is this..."

Seven tugged it out of Santa's hands.

"Heh. I see..."

The card went from Seven to Lotus, from Lotus to June, and finally to Junpei. He looked at it, and understood.

"This is braille."

Braille. The written language of the blind. The card was covered with small, embossed bumps.

Junpei could recognize it, but he certainly couldn't read it.

"Sorry guys, I can't read this." unpei handed the card back to Snake, who nodded at him with a small smirk.

"Okay, that was fun. What's so important about that card?"

"I found it in my pocket. I can only assume it is a message from Zero."

"F-From Zero?"

" A message?!"

"W-What does it say?!"

Suddenly, everyone was crowding around Snake, desperate to hear what the message said. Santa especially looked as if he were about to grab hold of Snake and shake the answers from him. Snake raised his hand.

"Calm down now. No need to panic. You don't need to force me, I'll read it."

Junpei swallowed hard and waited for him to start. He was not the only one.

Presently, Snake began to read, his voice calm. His fingers glided over the tiny bumps as he spoke.

"Bracelet number (2)... Since you are not blessed with sight I shall bless you-and only you-with information. I shall tell you of the function of the RED, of the DEAD, and of the bracelet."

"The RED is the Recognition Device. It will verify your number. Beside every numbered door, you will find a RED. The DEAD is the Deactivation Device. It does exactly what it says. Once you have passed through the numbered door, you must use the DEAD to stop the detonator in your bracelet. But perhaps you are wondering... What does this detonator detonate? I am afraid this may be something of a surprise."

"I have placed a small bomb inside of you, and the people whom you are about to meet. You swallowed it while you were unconscious. I have no doubt that by the time you read this note, the bomb will have passed your stomach and found its way to your small intestine. In other words, you will be unable to regurgitate it. I suggest you do not try. As I mentioned before, the bracelet on your left hand contains a detonator. Think of it as a remote fuse, or timer, for the bomb in your body. There is only 1 condition which will cause it to detonate. That condition is that you enter a numbered door. Once you have done so, the timer will activate, no matter who you may be. You will have 81 seconds".

"If, after that time, the detonator has not been deactivated, it will send a signal to the bomb in your body, instructing it to explode. In order to deactivate the detonator, every person who verified their number at the RED must also verify their numbers at the DEAD. Once all numbers have been verified by the DEAD, you need only pull the lever at its side, and the countdown will cease. Anyone who does not verify their number at the RED will find themselves unable to verify their number at the DEAD. That is to say, if you should pass through a numbered door without first verifying your number at the RED, in 81 seconds you will be dead. You must also keep in mind that the numbered doors will close automatically after [9 seconds] have passed. So long as the door is open, the DEAD will not function. You would do well to remember this."

"Lastly, let us discuss how to remove the bracelets. There are only 2 ways to do so. One: You escape from this ship. Two: Your heart rate reaches zero. In other words, once the bracelet is taken outside the confines of the ship, or detects that its wearer's heartbeat has fallen to zero, it will shut down automatically. There is no other way to remove your bracelet. If you attempt to force it off, or disable the detonator, the bomb within you will immediately explode."

"This is all the information which I can impart to you. How you choose to use it is for you to decide. If used wisely, you can eliminate those who might be a danger to you. For a time, you would be able to control your fate. I wish you the best of luck."

Snake finished reading, and carefully returned the card to his pocket.

The message had been lengthy, but its meaning was clear. Only those who verified their numbers at the RED could pass through the numbered doors.

Teams could not increase or decrease their numbers.

The REDs, DEADs, and bracelets enforced the rules. They were judge, jury, and executioner.

In defiance of Zero's suggestions, both Santa and Seven put fingers down their throats and began to gag.

The rest stiffened. Some touched their stomachs-some simply stared at their bracelets.

Junpei gingerly touched his stomach.

There was a bomb inside his body. The thought of it made him queasy. His stomach felt oddly hollow, and his legs were weak. Why had Zero designed such a ludicrous game? Junpei looked over at the others.

"All right, I'm gonna ask one more time. Do any of you know anything about Zero?"

They were all silent, each person waiting to hear what the others would say.

Finally, Santa spoke.

"Actually, I...I saw him. I saw Zero when I got grabbed. I didn't see his face, though... Son of a bitch was wearing some kinda gas mask."

Everyone stared at Santa, not saying anything.

" ...What the hell? C'mon guys, gimme something... You know, like...surprise or something."

Instead, it was Santa who looked surprised. There was a moment of silence, and then everyone spoke at once. "Yeah, I saw him too!" "Me too!" "He was wearing a gas mask..." As stories were sorted out, the truth became clear:

All of their stories were the same. They had been abducted at home, at midnight. The person claiming to be Zero had worn a mask. There had been white smoke, and then each person had passed out. When they awoke, they had found themselves on D Deck, in a room with a 3-level bunk bed.

Only Seven's story seemed to lack the detail of the others.

"Oh... Me...? Yeah, well, mine was just like the rest'a yours..."

That was all he had said. It had occurred to Junpei at the time that it sounded somewhat strange, but he didn't press the issue.

He hadn't done so, because there was something that struck him as even stranger.

That was the mystery of the relationship between Snake and Clover. For some reason, they had been abducted from the same room, and woken up in the same room.

Junpei looked at them, thoughtfully.

"So what's the deal with the 2 of you, anyway?"

It was Clover that answered. Clearly, she felt she had nothing to hide.

"We're siblings."

"Siblings!?"

"Uh...yes? Snake is my older brother, obviously. That means I'm his little sister. That really so hard to understand?"

Junpei was taken aback. The others seemed just as surprised.

"She is correct, of course." He laid his hand on Clover's shoulder.

"Are you...surprised?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

"Why? There are other people here with connections to one another. Those 2, for instance..." Snake pointed at Junpei and June.

"Oh, you mean between Jumpy and me...?"

"Ah, yes. You did say you were childhood friends, didn't you."

"Y-Yeah..." June glanced at Junpei, uncomfortable with the sudden attention.

Junpei felt somewhat nervous as well, and tried to scratch his head as casually as possible.

Santa and Seven both looked at each other, and began to talk.

"Hey... You think maybe we could figure out who Zero is this way?"

"Yeah, you're right. You connect the dots between the victims, and that leads you to the perp. Textbook stuff."

"Junpei, June, does any of this ring a bell?"

"Ring a bell..."

"Ring a bell...?"

They looked at one another. And like it was staged, they both tilted their neck at the same time.

"Well, perhaps you went to school with the son of a multi-millionaire..."

"A millionaire...?"

"Son...?"

"Well, someone bought this boat, and set up all of...this. Whoever Zero is, they must be incredibly rich."

Ace quickly used this opportunity to interject.

"Well, we can't be sure of that. To me, this seems as though it's the work of an organization, not an individual. Zero is most likely simply the representative of a larger group."

"What sort of organization?"

"It could be a number of things. An army, perhaps, or a research group. Perhaps this is all some sort of psychological experiment."

Santa wasn't happy with that idea.

"If it is, then it's a pretty fucked up experiment! I mean, c'mon! A guy's dead!"

The word "dead" hung in the air, heavy and ominous. The room went quiet again.

"I dunno who the hell this Zero asshole is, but I know for sure he's gotta be pretty fucked up in the head to do all this. If this was all 1 guy, then he's got some serious issues."

Even with the spectre of death hanging over them, their discussions continued for some time.

In the end, however, they learned nothing.

By the time they finished, 1.5 of their 9 hours were gone. All they had to show for it was impatience.

"Man... Look we only got 7.5 hours left, okay? You really sure you want to just sit around?"

No one was willing to argue this time. Ace was the first to respond, and then the others followed suit.

"Very well then. There's only one way for us to proceed."

"Sure not gonna be fun running around knowin' we gotta jump when Zero says "Jump"."

"Well, it's stupid to just sit around here doing nothing."

"Thanks to Snake's card, at least we have some idea of how this all works.

"Correct. And so long as we follow the rules, we should...ah...we will most likely be all right."

"But..."

"Who's going to go in which door?"

June looked toward the numbered doors.

"Oh yeah... That's right. We can't have any more than 5 people in one door. All 8 of us can't go in the same door..."

"Then it would seem we will have to split up."

"W-Wait!" Lotus looked terrified.

"I'm telling you now, there is no way in hell that I'm going into door 5!"

"Come now, don't be selfish-" Ace tried to reason with Lotus, only to be immediately cut off.

"Call me whatever the hell you want, I'm not going in there! If I'm going to have to walk through all that blood, then I'd rather stay here!"

"And we were doing so well..." Ace shook his head sadly.

"Sorry, but I ain't goin' in there either. Someone else can go into door 5."

"Oh, Santa not you too..."

"Hey man, I just bought these shoes. If you think I'm getting some creepy dude's blood all over 'em, you got another think comin'."

That was the last straw.

"What the hell, man?! Weren't you the one who kept saying we should get going!?"

"Yeah? So? Doesn't mean I wanted to go into door 5."

"Oh God..."

There was an awkward silence. Finally Seven spoke.

"Fine. I'll go into door 5. I can't go in there alone, though. Anyone else willing to come with me?"

There was another long silence. This time Snake was the one to break it.

"I'll go."

Clover shot Snake a confused look.

"W-What?!"

"Don't worry. You'll be fine. We may part now, but I'm certain we'll meet again later."

"How do you know that?!"

"Because I do."

"That's not an answer! If you're going, I'm going too! I'm going into door 5!"

"What am I going to do with you..."

"There's nothing you have to do." Ace stepped forward.

"If I join you, the problem is solved, correct? Seven is (7) and Snake is (2). And if you add Clover's (4) and my (1), the digital root will be [5]."

7 + 2 + 4 + 1 = 14 ? 1 + 4 = [5]

"Oh! It works perfectly! The 4 of us can go into door [5]-"

"Wait. What about the other 4? What's their digital root gonna be?"

Junpei did a quick mental calculation. Lotus, Santa, June, and Junpei remained. Their bracelet numbers were (8), (3), (6), and (5).

8 + 3 + 6 + 5 = 22, 2 + 2 = [4]

He repeated what he'd determined.

"It's [4]. Add up our 4 bracelet numbers, and the digital root is [4]."

"Then we can go into door [4]."

"Yeah. Huh, that worked out well."

Junpei ran over the team assignments in his head one more time. 4 people would go into door [5]: Seven, Snake, Clover, and Ace. 4 people would go into door [4]: Lotus, Santa, June, and Junpei. Junpei had to ask himself if the teams were what he really wanted.

Beyond door [5] was what remained of the 9th Man. He never wanted to see that...thing again, but... Something in him said it would be unwise not to examine the corpse even a little closer.

Of course, if he went through door [5], he wouldn't be going with Lotus and Santa. true, it would be possible for him to bring June with him through door [5], but that would mean she would have to see the horrific carnage that waited there. Junpei didn't want that.

Junpei was torn.

Should he stay silent, and go through door [4]?

Or should he stop them all, and insist on door [5]?

As he turned his options over and over in his mind Ace spoke up.

"All right then... It seems we've reached a conclusion. Shall we go?"

He began to walk toward door [5]...

Clover and Snake followed, with Seven a short distance behind.

Junpei... Decided that door [4] would be fine. He would go through door [4] with Lotus, Santa, and June. Why had Junpei even considered doing otherwise? He would be there for June... For Akane Kurashiki. That seemed good. He felt it was the right choice to make. He made no shows of affection, but Junpei saw her as something more than just a friend from his childhood.

He watched the other 4 walk toward their door... Ace, Snake, Clover, and Seven... Junpei said nothing as they left.

Before long, they had reached door [5]. They talked to one another for a few seconds, saying things Junpei couldn't hear, and then laid their hands, one by one, on the scanner panel of the RED. Ace grabbed the lever. His face tight with determination, he turned over his shoulder to look at Junpei and his companions.

"Goodbye."

As Ace pulled the lever, the door swung open; the mouth of a great, hungry beast. Beyond the door, Junpei knew, lay the sad remains of the 9th Man... It did not surprise him that Ace, Clover, and Seven hesitated. The body was not a pleasant thing.

Snake, had no such problems, as his blindness made him immune to the horror. He stepped through the door, his feet making a wet "splack" in the pool of blood.

"Do you intend to kill me? I assume you haven't forgotten the door only remains open for 9 seconds, have you?"

Snake had not even bothered to turn around, but the other 3 steeled themselves, and stepped through the door.

Door 5 swung shut, closing with the heavy finality of metal upon metal. Junpei and his companions scrambled to the door. They pressed their ears to it, in an attempt to hear what might be taking place on the other side.

The four of them talked, one after another, as if to complete the other's sentence.

"It's beeping..."

"It's just like before...

"Probably the sound of the detonator on the bracelet..."

"Do you think they're...okay?" June's face showed her concern more plainly than her words ever could.

Almost as though in response to her question, a voice rang out from the other side of the door.

It was Seven.

"Hey! There it is! That's gotta be that DEAD thing! Come on! Get over here! We gotta authenticate!"

The beeping stopped. The sighs of relief were audible even through the heavy door.

"Phew... Looks like it stopped."

Junpei and his companions leaned away from the door, and breathed a collective sigh of relief of their own.

"Hey, guys! Are you doing all right over there?!"

They'd heard Seven's voice, but it wouldn't hurt to be sure.

"Yup! We're fine!"

Despite the recent danger, Clover's voice was as bubbly as ever.

"Oh, hey, I'm gonna tell you about this whole DEAD thing, okay?! The DEAD is just like the RED, but the color's different. You know how the RED was red? Well, the DEAD is blue! Other than that, it's just like the RED. Authenticating is the same too!"

"Awesome! Thanks! That helps a lot."

"Well, we should probably move on now. You be careful out there."

"Roger that."

Junpei and the others left door [5] and headed toward door [4].

They stood in front of the RED and placed each of their hands upon it. 4 asterisks appeared on the screen. Junpei grabbed the lever and turned around.

"You guys ready...?"

"Yeah..."

"Sure..."

"Let's go..."

None of them looked particularly optimistic, but their faces were set. Junpei nodded to them, and turned back toward the RED.

"All right, let's go!"

With strength and determination, he pulled the lever.

"Run!"

The 4 of them leapt through the door together. The moment they had passed through it, each heard a cold, electronic sound coming from their left wrist.

In the center of each bracelet, a red skull appeared, and began to flash. The detonator's countdown had begun! In the long moment that each of them spent staring at their wrists... The numbered door behind them closed, the sound of metal on metal reverberating down the hallway.

There was no way back now. They were committed. If they could not find the device to deactivate their detonators...

Lotus and Santa had a brief exchange of words.

"Hey! Where the hell is the DEAD!?"

"How would I know!?"

"Don't gimme that crap! Start looking!"

"I already am!"

They began to run, eyes looking frantically for the device that was the key to their salvation. The hallway they found themselves running down was a long one-easily 300 feet in length. On the right side of it stood a series of wooden doors, all nearly identical. If they had taken time to think, they would likely have discerned that the doors lead to cabins.

"Don't tell me the DEAD is in one of those rooms..."

"Oh no! How many rooms do you think there are?!"

Junpei was too frightened to count properly, but at his best guess there were 7 or 8 of them.

"Ahhhh fuck!"

There wasn't time to count them to be sure. Junpei ran to the nearest door. He grabbed the knob and shook it, hard. It wouldn't open. It didn't feel locked... More like someone had hammered an iron plate over the other side of the door. Junpei turned around to find another door, and saw that his companions had already run to doors of their own. They did not seem to be having any more success than he had. Their own words confirmed his fears.  
"Shit! This one's no good."

"Same here!"

"It's not moving!" June was the last to speak up.

As Junpei looked in her direction, his eye caught something he hadn't noticed before... A small, red light. It flashed at him, dimly, from the end of the hallway.

"That's it! Over there!" Even as he yelled, he ran.

He grabbed Santa, Lotus, and June, and pulled them toward the light. Santa called out to them as he ran.

"Hey! How many more seconds do we have!?"

"How would I know!?"

"Our time limit is 81 seconds!"

"I know that, goddamnit! I'm askin' you how many seconds we have left!"

In all likelihood, Junpei figured, nearly a minute had already passed, since the door had closed behind them. If that was true... Urgency foremost in all of their minds, they arrived at the end of the hallway. The DEAD sat on the left wall, blinking almost tauntingly at them.

"Hurry!" Junpei grabbed hold of the machine, his hands slick with sweat, and shaking. He slammed his hand against the scanner panel.

The other 3 quickly followed suit. With a grunt, Santa yanked the lever downward.

All of them started breathing heavily after watching the skull disappear from the watch's display. They had beat death for the first time.

"Phew... Looks like it's stopped." His hands beginning to steady, Junpei wiped away some of the sweat that had beaded on his forehead.

As they caught their breath, the 4 companions began to look around. At the end of the hallway lay a heavy-looking set of double doors. Set into the walls of the hallway on either side of the larger door were 2 smaller ones. They all needed inspecting, but Junpei began with the largest of the 3-the double-doors.

How many times had he come across similar doors, with similar results, he wondered. Or perhaps, he corrected himself, more a lack of results... Whatever the reason, the door remained firm and unyielding, and refused to allow Junpei, or anyone else, the handle was a small keyhole. Above the keyhole was a small symbol, engraved in the brass.

"Male...?" He wasn't quite sure what to make of it. And stared at it for a moment in confusion. It was June that corrected him.

"No, that's not the symbol for "male". That's probably the symbol of Mars. Well, technically, they are the same symbol... But I saw a number of similar symbols near the main stairway. The symbols of the solar system... The Sun... Saturn... The Earth... At least, that's what I'm assuming."

" So this isn't the man symbol, it's a symbol for Mars?

"I think so, yes."

While Junpei and June talked, Santa had disappeared.

They turned to find him some distance down the hallway-he had gone to check the other doors. Eventually he reached the last of them and jogged back. It took him only a moment to catch his breath again.

"Here's the deal. None of the other doors open."

"Then that must mean..."

"We only have 2 more doors." Lotus examined the doors on either side of the larger double-door. Each one had a metal plate attached to it. Junpei figured they were probably room numbers.

The door on the left read B92. And the door on the right proclaimed that it lead to B93.

"All right. Let's open 'em."

"Yeah."

Junpei put his hand on the door knob for the door that said Room 92. Santa moved to the door to Room 93.

They'd made it through the numbered door alive. There was nothing more to be afraid of. Junpei and Santa looked at each other and nodded.

"1...2...3!" In unison, they pushed against their respective doors.

...And promptly found themselves in a new room. June followed Junpei as he threw open his door. They turned around, and saw that the door on the other side was open as well. Through the door was another person, his mouth agape. It was Santa.

"Hey...uh... It opened."

"Yeah... It did..."

Junpei and Santa looked at each other. They had not expected the doors to yield so easily. Lotus's calm voice broke into their thoughts.

"Maybe this is all part of Zero's plan? I can't say I enjoy being treated like someone's puppet." As she headed for Room 93, Lotus continued.

"Well, now we have these 2 rooms. I'm sure there's something in there

that will help us get out of here. Let's find it. Santa and I will search this room. Junpei and June, search the other one."

"All right."

"Okay!"


	3. Second Class Cabin

Junpei was now tasked with investigating these rooms.

His eyes shot around the room, trying to take as much information in as possible. He didn't want to spend any unnecessary time here. It was a fairly small room that only featured a small table and a couch nearby it. The bluish green wallpaper made it feel like he was in a really old house. He went to check the empty display case in the corner of the room, but noticed there was something on the small table. A pack of matches. He slid it in his jacket pouch. But before he continued, he spoke to June.

"Hey, you should rest on the couch. You still look a little out there after that fever attack."

"Are you...worried about me?" June had looked at him right in the eyes. He couldn't help but blush.

"Yeah, I guess I am." Junpei forced his eyes to wander at anything else in the room, and scratched at the back of his head.

"By the way...Jumpy...?"

"Hm?"

"How did you end up here?"

Junpei wasn't entirely sure what to make of this.

"What do you mean? I told you earlier, didn't I?"

"There was a man with a gas mask when you got home at night. You inhaled some white smoke and passed out. When you woke up, you were on D Deck..."

"Yeah, that's it."

"But is that really the truth?"

" ...What?!"

Now that was uncalled for. Junpei took a step backwards after hearing that. Did Akane not trust him?

"Jumpy, are you hiding something from me?"

"No! Why would I!?"

"Well, if you think about it, this is awfully suspicious. I mean, why would 2 childhood friends bump into each other in a place like this...?"

"Hey, I could ask you the same thing! Are you hiding something?"

"What would I hide...?"

"Well, I dunno. Anything. I mean, you're hiding it. How would I know?"

"You mean, like...the number of men I've dated?"

Junpei's heart stumbled over itself.

"Do you want to know?"

He had to admit, he was a little curious.

"Don't worry. Only 18..." She smiled at him.

"...Times 0. Yeah... I guess I just haven't met Mr. Right yet..." June looked a little embarrassed, and scratched the back of her head in a desperate attempt to seem nonchalant. Junpei coughed quietly in much the same way.

"Anyway, I'm not hiding anything. Just like you, Jumpy. When I woke up, I was on D Deck..."

"Well, you do have a point. I mean, why did Zero pick us? We haven't seen each other since elementary school."

June nodded, and for a few moments she had the faraway look of someone in deep thought.

"Look for what connects the victims. That will lead you to the culprit. Do you remember Seven saying something like that?"

"Yeah, I do. So?"

"Well, that's what I'm saying. I think this must all have something to do with a classmate of ours..."

"You got any ideas who it might be?"

"No, nothing... Well, if it had something to do with school, then it could be one of our teachers, or maybe the principal..."

"Or the janitor or the lunch lady?"

"No... I can barely remember any of them..."

"Yeah, I know..." Junpei went back to searching feeling unpleasant and confused. Elementary school... Elementary school... Was there anything strange that had happened in elementary school? As he searched the room, he continued to wrack his brain.

To his left was a short hallway that would lead to the bathroom. Junpei noticed an odd picture that hung just by the door. It was very abstract, and he had no idea what to make of it. He gave the bathroom a quick once-over, but it seemed to have nothing of notice in it. Just a normal room.

To his right was another door. He grasped the brass doorknob and turned it, throwing the door open with a swift push. The room seemed to be a bedroom. A vanity, a two person bed, and a cupboard.

The bed was nothing special, and neither was the cupboard. Junpei was getting a little frustrated at this point. He wasn't making much progress. But then he checked the vanity drawer. Inside was a small, simple key. "Not much use here, we haven't found anything locked yet." Junpei thought to himself. He was about to exit the room, but in the corner of his eye, saw something hanging above the bed. It seemed to be a... Map?

Junpei brought the map back to the living room and presented it to June, who was still on the couch.

"This ship is bigger than I thought."

"Yeah, it's probably about 900 feet long." Junpei briefly wondered if they'd be able to explore the whole thing in the amount of time given.

"Must be one of those fancy cruise ships."

"Course, it doesn't really look like a cruise ship. Everything in here is really retro. Even if it's some sorta style choice, there's just too much."

"Do you remember what Zero said? On April 14th, 1912...the famous ocean liner Titanic crashed into an iceberg. After remaining afloat for 2 hours and 40 minutes, it sank beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. Do you think maybe this boat and the Titanic have something to do with each other?"

"Hmmm... That's a good point. I doubt he would've mentioned it if there wasn't a reason..." Junpei took a moment to look around the room.

"Do you think this boat is... A replica of the Titanic?"

"A replica...?"

"Yeah. You know, like a copy of the actual boat."

"Who on Earth would make something like that?"

"Fans. Crazy Titanic fans."

"No way! Do you even know how much money that would take?"

"No idea. But all they've gotta do is break even, you know?"

"Break even...?"

"Yeah. They could use it as a cruise ship. Climb aboard a piece of history! Sail 'round the world in the resurrected Titanic! Hell, with marketing like that, they'd probably have more customers than they'd know what to do with."

"Do you really think people would want to ride on a ship with such an ominous past? It's the site of the worst accident in history... Over 1500 people died... I wouldn't be surprised if you'd get cursed just for going. Jumpy, do you believe in that sort of thing? You know...curses and stuff?"

"Yeah, well, I guess so. To a certain extent. What about you...? Nah, I guess that's kind of a dumb question." Junpei scratched his temple.

"Yes, I do believe in curses. In fact, I think it was a curse that sunk the Titanic."

"What?"

"A curse sank the Titanic. The curse of the Egyptian mummy."

Junpei couldn't understand how June had maintained a straight face to say that.

"Supposedly the Titanic carried the mummy of the Priestess Amon-Ra... Which was stolen from a pyramid. And they say that the mummy had a history... Everyone involved with it died mysterious deaths... Come on, I'm sure you've heard of it before... "Those who open the coffin will be forever cursed"... Haven't you ever heard that one?"

"So you're saying the Titanic sunk because of that curse...?"

"That's right!" June's eyes had lit up with excitement, like a child with a new toy.

"That mummy, the priestess... Supposedly, she was...special."

"...What do you mean?"

"Well, supposedly, she was really pretty."

" Pretty?"

"Yes."

"But...she was a mummy."

"That's right. She wasn't all shriveled up or rotten or anything. She looked just like she was alive."

"Ohhh. I get it. It's that thing... I don't remember the name... Where your body turns into some kind of wax? If a dead body is put in the right sort of environment... The fat in it turns into something kinda like candle wax, right? And-"

"Yes, saponification. But that's not what it was."

"Huh?"

"That's not it. She wasn't wax."

"Then what is it?"

"They say...that she was frozen."

"What...? Frozen?"

"That's right. The whole body was frozen solid... You know how a human body is more than 60 percent water? Well, all of that water was frozen. The story says that from the time of its discovery, all the way through to when it got put on the Titanic... And even though it was carried through the desert... Her body never melted."

June and Junpei talked a little more, and then went back to their investigation. But even as they did, his mind went back to what she'd told him. Ice that wouldn't melt, even in the desert... Could such a thing really exist? No, even if it did, it wouldn't really be "ice" anymore, would it? The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt. Like he'd eaten his ice cream too fast...

Soon after the two was finished with their room, and Junpei decided to have a check on Santa and Lotus. He had a feeling they haven't made much progress.

The second room was much like the first. A small table, a couch, a display case, a hall with an odd picture that lead to a bathroom, and a door to lead to the bedroom. However, the display case here was full of objects. Santa was yanking on the handle to open it, but to little avail.

Junpei walked over to the table and saw that a candle laid on top of it. Perhaps the matches were for lighting it? He kept it grasped in his left hand as he continued the search.

The odd picture was in the same place as the other room, but it seemed to be missing portions of it. The only thing that remained was the bottom left panel. He walked into the bathroom, and immediately noticed something.

The shower curtain wasn't there. It was there in the previous bathroom, he knew that for sure. But why was this one gone? He scoured for clues, but turned up dry. Bathroom was a dead end, for now.

Next order of business was the bedroom. Junpei opened the door, as Santa and Lotus stood behind him. However, the bedroom was pitch black. One could barely see into the room and make out a faint vanity.

Lotus moved to turn the light on. Nothing. The power was cut to this room.

"What the hell? Can Zero not even keep his own ship working?" Santa swore, throwing his hands up and turning back around.

But Junpei had the solution. Simply light the candle with the matches he found from the two rooms. Presto. There be light. He placed it on the vanity to avoid having hot wax fall onto his hand.

"Nice one, Junpei!" His teammates awarded him with a pat on the back. Somehow this did not make Junpei feel much better.

Since the two rooms seemed to be mirrors of the other, Junpei first checked the vanity drawer. He gave it a small tug, but it had no give. Zero sure did like locking things. His hand dove into his pocket to retrieve the key he found in the other vanity, swiftly depositing it into the keyhole. A twist and a pull, the drawer was unlocked. It held only a single object, a small tile that reminded Junpei of the abstract pictures he saw earlier.

There was no map above the bed however. What there was though, was a curtain that laid on the bed itself. His earlier suspicisions were true, and it was intentional. He grabbed the curtain and turned around to leave, but just then, the light went out. Upon further inspection it seems the candle ran out of wax. Junpei took notice that the candlestick looked less like a stick, and more now like a... Key? He looked at it closer, and it did indeed resemble the teeth of a key.

As the display case was just a few steps from the bedroom, he decided it wouldn't hurt to try. Both Santa and Lotus gave him an odd look as he hadn't explained himself the entire time he was in the room and that he was now trying to put a candlestick into a keyhole. To everyone's surprise, it actually clicked, and opened up. The first object one would see was a tile, much like the one Junpei found in the drawer.

Santa looked at Junpei with an odd stare. He clearly didn't expect Junpei to just come into his room and be a puzzle solving master.

"The fuck man? It's like you've already completed this before or something."

Those words rapidly echoed in Junpei's mind. It did seem rather odd to him that he was able to piece together things that weren't intuitive. His body just seemed to move on it's own at times.

"Sorry Santa, I guess i'm just better at solving things than you are." Junpei loved the occasional tease. It helped break up the tension. The curtain wasn't going to hang itself though. He moved quickly through the room and down the hall to the bathroom. Lotus was inspecting the painting and it's missing tiles very carefully, as if trying to recall something. Well, it wasn't his priority at the moment. He took no mind of it and walked into the bathroom.

Just as before, it had shower curtain rings near the ceiling but no curtain to gird itself. Junpei remedied that and pulled it closed. There was a hole torn in it, off the center and to the left. Peering through it, all one would see is one of the tiles on the wall. Specifically, the fifth from the top and third from the right. This was clearly implying something.

Junpei pulled the curtain back and took a step to the tile. His nails dug around it, yet nothing was coming loose. As he did this, his mind conjured an image. The other bathroom, and it's tile. Junpei released his hands from the wall and quickly ran back into the other bathroom to confirm this thought.

Why did that first come to mind? What if he missed a tool and was supposed to break the tile in the other room? It was if his mind was working independantly. Junpei pushed back those thoughts and focused on the task at hand. The tile came off without any resistance, and a painting tile was behind it. That made three, enough to finish the picture.

After some rearranging of the tiles, Junpei succeeded in recreating the picture. It lowered and revealed a key with the symbol of Mars. As with everything, he put it in his pocket.

"What's the deal with this picture anyway..." Santa had only been mumbling to himself, but it drew Lotus's attention.

She looked at the picture, and paused.

"I...I think I've seen this picture before."

"Where?"

"In a book. There's a British biochemist named Sheldrake. He has a rather interesting theory. I saw this picture in his book."

"What's this interesting theory?"

"Morphogenetic field, which relies on the theory of morphic resonance..."

"Man, I can't deal with this. Just listening to you talk about it is giving me a headache." Santa put his hands on his head, as though he were in great pain.

Lotus merely arched an eyebrow in his direction and continued.

"It's not a difficult concept to grasp. In essence, he states that the shapes of living organisms and their behavioral patterns are transmitted through a field not visible to the eye."

"Uh, what part of that isn't difficult, exactly?"

Lotus did not look pleased.

"All right, how about this... Theory of the Telepathic Mechanism."

"Telepathy?"

"Yes, telepathy. Well, perhaps not exactly telepathy, but... It is close enough, for a simple approximation."

Santa suddenly burst into laughter.

"HAHAHAAHA! Are you serious!? Telepathy? Who do you think we are? Kids from the 70s? I can't believe someone would actually do serious research on something like that."

"Yes, I agree."

Lotus's response was surprisingly curt. Junpei had expected at least some conflict.

"I read the book, but I can hardly say I understood it. I'm in no position to defend or condemn anything it said. It was probably just someone latching on to a statistical out-lier from some study and turning it into a ridiculous theory. There's no scientific merit to any of it, I'm sure. But even so... I... Anyway, I saw a picture like that one in his book."

Lotus indicated the picture they'd all been looking at. After a moment she walked up to the strange picture, examined it, and then spoke.

"Hey... What do you think this picture looks like?"

Santa answered first.

"Wadda ya mean? Isn't it just, like...abstract, or something like that? It's just black and white scribbles. There's no meaning there. That's it."

"What about you, Junpei? Does it look like anything to you?"

"Hmm... I guess it looks like..."

Junpei stared at the picture for a long moment. He could see nothing but paint, he was never good at rorschach tests. That is, until his mind gave him a little help. "Dog" is what it was telling him. Dog? Maybe...

"Maybe a dog? See, you've got the head here, and these are the front paws... And these are the back paws."

Junpei traced the black contours.

"See?"

"Ahh...I see it... I guess you've got a point..." Santa despite his constant aloofness, was clearly impressed.

Junpei glanced over at Lotus. She looked stunned.

"How did you know? You're right. I didn't think you would have been able to guess that."

For a brief moment, Junpei felt a swell of pride.

"A TV show from Great Britain did an experiment once. They took 2 similar pictures. Both of them were difficult to identify, initially... But once you'd figured out the answer, you couldn't see it as anything else. The first picture was a woman wearing a hat. The other one... Well, to make it easier... Let's just say it was this picture of a dog. So. Their experiment... First, they sent the pictures to other parts of the world where British radio and television didn't reach. To Ireland, the U.S., Africa, Europe, etc... Then, in each country, they gathered a number of test subjects. All in all, there were roughly 1,000 people."

"Those 1,000 people were shown the 2 pictures, and asked "What does this picture look like to you?" The results, in and of themselves, were not terribly interesting... [9.2%%] of the people saw the lady in the lady picture. [3.9%%] saw the dog in the dog picture. Then, 2 days later... They broadcast a new show. During the 30 minute show, they broadcast the dog picture, and its solution. The audience was estimated to be 200,000 people. After the broadcast, it could be assumed that the number of people who knew the solution to the dog picture now totalled over 200,000 people. After another 2 days had passed, they gathered a number of research subjects from areas where British TV and radio did not exist."

"This time, they were only able to find a sample of roughly 850 people. Naturally, none of them were people who had participated in the 1st test. They were, however, given the same test, and the same 2 pictures. The results...were shocking. [10%%] of the people saw the lady in the lady picture. The previous test had yielded a [9.2%%] success rate-the change was not statistically significant. The dog picture, however, produced a very different result. The percentage of people able to successfully find the dog grew from [3.9%%] to [6.8%%]. A very significant increase."

"So, do you understand? Do you realize the significance of this experiment? There was no way the second group could have seen the picture. They lived far away from Britain, and couldn't have seen the picture. But even so, it was only the success rate for the dog picture that went up. Why? How did that happen? What does it mean?"

Lotus looked back and forth, from Junpei to Santa and back again.

Normally calm and collected, she looked now as though she were very nearly possessed, and there was something manic about her manner. Santa took an involuntary step backward. Junpei didn't budge, and stared straight back into Lotus's eyes...

"Does this have something to do with that "field" or whatever it was that you were talking about earlier? A field not visible to the eye... So if more people know the answer... Then that information will pass through the field..."

They all stared at each other for a moment.

"Pssyyyych!" Her manner suddenly shifted, and Lotus smiled broadly at Junpei and Santa. She waved her hand dismissively, doing her best to laugh the whole confrontation off.

"Oh, I was just kidding. You really shouldn't take me seriously. Well, I mean, the things I just told you about are true. They really did happen. But the results of that experiment really aren't anything to go by. They could have easily falsified them. In the end, I'm sure they were just in it for the ratings. They are a TV station, after all."

At last, it seemed that Santa had gained control of his composure.

"R-Riiiight! Man, I gotta admit, you had me there for a minute! I, uh, really thought you were serious..."

"Like I told you before, I'm sure it's all just pseudoscience."

"O-Oh, okay, right! Ha ha ha hahahaha!"

Santa and Lotus laughed, and gave one another jovial claps on the shoulder.

Junpei, however, didn't feel so much like laughing.

Something felt...wrong...unclear...

"All right, enough nonsense. We've got the key. Let's get out of here."

"Word."

Lotus and Santa walked away from the picture.

But Junpei stayed, staring at the picture of the dog.

"A field not visible to the naked eye"

Morphogenetic field... The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt.

Junpei went to leave the room, as their work was done and they could all leave, but he was stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, Junpei, you got a minute?" Santa had shown up out of nowhere, and gave Junpei no small start.

"Here, take this." Santa pulled something out of his pocket. It looked like a bookmark. It had a 4-leaf clover in it.

"What is this...?"

"I found it in-between some of the cushions on the sofa. Pretty sure it ain't gonna be any help to us, but I figured we might as well hang onto it anyway."

"Then why don't you hold onto it?"

Santa gave him a wry smile.

"You know what I hate most in the world? I got 4 things: Hope, Faith, Love, and Luck."

"Hope, Faith, Love, and Luck...?"

"Damn straight."

"And you...hate these things?"

"Yeah, you got a problem with that?"

"Uh, not really, but..."

Junpei tried to figure out how best to phrase what he wanted to say.

"What does a bookmark have to do with any of that?"

Santa scratched the back of his ear, and looked awkward.

"Well, see, each leaf on the 4-leaf clover has a meaning to it, okay? And that meaning is pretty much those 4 words. It's like...a flower language. Well, I guess it's not a flower is it? So a leaf language, I guess. Yeah, you could call 'em leaf words."

Junpei looked at the bookmark.

Hope, Faith, Love, and Luck...

"So...yeah. I want you to take it, okay? Just touchin' it gives me the creeps. Take the damn thing, all right!?"

Santa pretended to shiver with disgust and shoved the bookmark into Junpei's confused hands.

"All right, sure, I'll take it.

He shoved the thing into his pocket, and gave Santa a last, confused look. His pockets will see a lot of use through this adventure.

"Phew. Man, I feel a lot better now. That thing was a real pain, you know?"

"Do you really hate those 4 words that much?"

"Yeah, well, they can all betray you, you know? Hope, Faith, Love... even your destiny..."

What had happened to Santa, Junpei wondered. How had he become such a bitter person For a moment, they looked at each other.

"Well, that's not my only reason. That's not the only reason I hate the 4-leaf clover. I just can't bring myself to like the number 4."

"What, worried about the Four Horsemen?"

"Nah. C'mon man, that's just silly. Maybe back in the Dark Ages that kinda crap scared people, but this is the 21st century, and I'm a 21st century guy."

"Then why do you hate 4 so much?"

"'Cause it's a half-ass number. Not the best or the worst. That's why. 9 is a way better number. So what if it's last place, right? Least it's not some lameass middle number."

Santa's explanation made no sense. Junpei was even more confused than before.

"You play?"

"You mean, like, the stock market?"

"Nah, that's not what I mean. Why the hell would you think that? I mean, yeah, I do stocks too, but..."

This last statement, more or less thrown away by Santa, caught Junpei very much by surprise.

"You!? A stockbroker?!"

"Yeah. Got a problem with that?"

"No, you just...don't look like the type."

What Junpei didn't say, of course, was that he didn't think Santa looked smart enough to be a stockbroker.

"Man, that stuff's just like gambling, you know? All you gotta do is bet on the winning horse. Nothing that hard about it."

"You sure sound pretty confident. So...are you betting on winning horses?"

"Course I am. You remember a couple years back when the stock for Cradle Pharmaceuticals shot through the roof? Stacked a few bills over that, if I do say so myself."

"Uh huh..."

"Uh huh" was all Junpei could think of.

Cradle Pharmaceutical... Why did that sound familiar? It was if he was on the brink of remembering something, but nothing came.

Junpei was taken out of his thoughts when he heard June and Lotus calling for them. They was supposed to be unlocking the door, not sitting here talking stocks. The two left the cabin and found themselves back in the long hallway. He retrieved the key and unlocked the door. The group had solved the puzzle.


	4. Kitchen

Before the group was a new room. Junpei hoped to only have to deal with one, but perhaps that was too optimistic.

This room felt as if it oozed grayness. Nothing had color, and everything was metal. How anyone could stay in such a dreary room for any length of time? At least the cabins before resembled rooms one could possibly use.

"Oh... So it's a kitchen..." Santa did not look pleased.

"What were you expecting?"

"Isn't it obvious? The exit. I was hoping this would be the way out of here."

"Heh. You really think it'd be that easy?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Still..."

As they talked, Lotus headed deeper into the room, until at last she stood in front of a door.

"If we can just get through this door, we should come out on the other side of that grate we saw earlier."

"But...don't we need a key for that...? Sorry. I guess that wasn't very constructive..." Neither Junpei nor Lotus looked terribly happy.

Junpei dug the ship map from his pocket, and spread it out in front of him. As he did...

"H-Hey!"

"What's that?!"

Whoops. Junpei had neglected to inform them.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess I forgot to tell you. I found this a little while ago. It's a map of the B Deck-" Before Junpei could finish, Lotus snatched the map away from him. She ran her finger across it, muttering to herself.

"I knew it. See? Look."

Junpei did as he was told. Santa and June moved over to look at the map as well.

"See? We came in here. If we go out there, then we'll be on the other side of the grate." With her finger Lotus traced a path on the map. She was right.

Satisfied that she had been correct, Lotus folded the map and handed it back to Junpei. He took it, and slid the valuable piece of paper back into his pocket.

"There's a card reader on the right side of the door."

"Then that means the key card is somewhere in here, right?"

"That seems the most likely."

"All right, we know what we need to do then. Let's get moving! First off, I say we split up and look for clues. "

They all gave each other a nod, and went to seperate parts of the room. There was the door they came in, the door locked by the key card, and two other doors they hadn't inspected yet. Dishwashers. Industrial ovens. Cooking utensils. Pressure cookers. Cabinets. This place clearly had to be busy at some point in time.

The first point of interest were the plates housed on the serving table. At the far end was a voucher.

"This voucher doesn't match the number of plates on the table..."

Lotus was the only one to speak.

"It says "Appetizer 9, Meat dish 10, Soup A, Seafood dish F" on the voucher. And the plates on the table are... "9 Appetizer, 16 Meat, 10 Soup, 15 Seafood". Maybe they're using hexadecimal here."

"And hexadecimal is...?"

"It's a number system that goes 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11... You're familiar with base-10, right? That's the "normal" system of numbers. The base-10 equivalents for hexadecimal numbers would go like this: A = 10, B = 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, F = 15... And 10 = 16 The 10 becomes 16 in base-10. I know it sounds strange, but you can think of it as just 6 letters added on to the normal number system after 9. A = 10, B = 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, F = 15, 10 = 16, and so on..."

Junpei had a hard time grasping the concept, but he got the gist of it. It will most likely come into play when dealing with the puzzle of the room.

Santa spoke up after picking up some objects on the countertop.

"We've got a rolling pin and...a colander. Nothing useful, in other words. We should check out the other door in the back."

Even though they hadn't made much progress in the main room, Santa's advice seemed the best. The doors they hadn't checked yet may give them a clue.

June and Junpei made their way to the back room and opened the door. The smell immediately hit them both. It stunk of spoiled dairy products and rotten food. He assumed the cabinet in the far corner of the room to be the biggest contributer.

The two noticed that the leftmost shelf was covered in a sheet. Junpei gave it a swift tug and revealed its contents. It seemed normal enough, just some canned goods and a small box. June opened it, and both of them peered inside.

"A rusty knife... I don't think we'll be able to use it while it's like this..."The knife seemed important, Junpei thought, but it wasn't going to be much use the way it was.

"It's futile.:

"Futile...?"

"You know... A waste, useless, pointless..."

"Oh... Um... Any particular reason you wanted to bring that up?"

"Oh, no reason, really... I was just thinking about Futility..."

She wasn't making much sense. Junpei tried rephrasing his question.

"Why were you thinking about Futility?"

At last, she answered.

"Well, it has something to do with the Titanic."

"The Titanic?"

" Yep. Have you ever heard the story that the sinking of the Titanic was predicted?"

"Ooooooh yeah. I know what you're talking about. There was a novel that had a bunch of stuff in it that described the sinking of the Titanic before it actually sank."

"Yeah, that's the one. The title of the novel is Futility. It was written 14 years before the Titanic sank. But-"

"I know, I know. I mean, I didn't know the name of the book, but... The story was the same, right? It was just like what happened on the Titanic? Well...I heard it was all a hoax."

" ...A hoax?"

"I heard that the stuff that matched up to the Titanic so well was actually added after it sank. Apparently, the only thing that was the same originally was that a boat ran into an iceberg and sank."

"But...the novel was published in 1898, 14 years before the accident..."

"Like I said, that was the first print of the book. 14 years later, the author heard about what happened to the Titanic. He figured that was his chance, you know? He just went back and changed some stuff in his novel... So that it matched the Titanic exactly."

Surprised by Junpei's response, June seemed rather taken aback.

"R-Really?"

"Really... There's no such thing as premonitions or any of that stuff."

For a moment, June looked very unhappy, more so than Junpei thought was normal for such a discussion.

...But it lasted only a moment. With no apparent reason, she suddenly looked up at him, alarmed.

"But! But, but! That wasn't the only book that predicted the Titanic sinking!"

" ...It wasn't?"

"Yep! There were 2 other, similar stories written by a man named William Thomas Stead. Both of them before the accident... One in 1886, and one in 1892. Stead wrote 2 stories that had striking similarities to the Titanic disaster. In one, 2 ships collided, and many of the passengers died because there weren't enough lifeboats. In the other, a ship collided with an iceberg, and sank."

"Hmm... I dunno. I mean, I'll give you that it seems a little weird, but... I'm pretty sure it wasn't too uncommon for ships to hit icebergs back in the day, or even other ships."

"Right. I knew you'd say that. But...what if Stead had some sort of special powers...? To be more specific, what if he had the ability to do automatic writing...?"

"What? Automatic writing? Wait, are you... Are you talking about that thing where someone says they're possessed by a spirit... And then they write a bunch of stuff without knowing what they're writing?"

"Yes."

"What do you mean "yes"... That stuff's a load of bull!"

"But Jumpy, you said you believe in curses..."

"C'mon, that's totally different... Okay, so let's say-hypothetically-that automatic writing isn't a total load. These guys still couldn't have predicted the sinking of the Titanic. When this Stead dude wrote his thing... Nobody had died on the Titanic yet. So if automatic writing is about being possessed by spirits of dead people... Who the hell possessed him so he could write that stuff?"

"That's not it."

"What's not it?"

"Stead wasn't possessed by a spirit. He was doing the possessing."

Junpei could hardly stifle his laughter.

"What are you smoking?!"

"William Thomas Stead was a passenger on the Titanic. He just wrote down what he saw with his own eyes. 20 years before it happened..."

He decided it was probably best to say nothing. What June was saying was insane and utterly absurd. If he tried to take what she was saying seriously, he'd go mad. Junpei smiled uncomfortably.

"Well...uh... Why don't we talk about this some other time...okay?"

"Huh...? But..." Her voice trailed off, and she glanced at the floor, troubled.

Junpei tapped June gently on the shoulder and awkwardly reached around her to pick up the knife from the box.

He really, really, really, did not want to open the shelf to his right. Talking had taken his mind off the smell, but now it was coming back full force. Junpei opened it as fast as he could and tried to get it over with. Inside was just wheels of cheese. That's it. Not even bad cheese, just cheese. Where was the smell coming from, then? Junpei didn't know, and he didn't care. After speedily searching the shelf he only found one thing of note. A bottle of oil.

They spent a few more minutes searching the pantry to ensure they covered everything, but eventually the smell forced them to leave.

The four of them regrouped by the second door they hadn't entered yet. Santa and Lotus had only found one thing worth mentioning. A locked container of some sort with an electronic keypad. Since neither of them had any idea what the code could be, they didn't get much progress.

One door still hadn't been inspected. Santa went to pull the handle. Nothing. It was kept locked with a rusty bar. Santa still gave it a few hard tugs for good measure.

Junpei looked odd as he stood there, bottle in one hand and a knife in the other. The group laid their eyes on him.

"...What?" Junpei hadn't even realized what he was doing.

They motioned for him to pour the bottle on the rusty bar. Oh. That made more sense. He obliged. The oil should lubricate it enough to allows movement.

Santa grabbed the bar and tried to move it again. This time the bar moved freely. He then grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. Out came a very cold gust of air onto them, and they walked inside.

"Brr... It's cold in here! What is this place..."

"Are you blind? It's a freezer." Santa's teeth had already begun to chatter. Hardly surprising. The freezer was far too cold for someone dressed as he was. Lotus, however, was in an even worse situation.

"Oh, no way! That's way too cold for me. I'll freeze solid in seconds. Sorry, but I'm afraid I'll have to pass on this one. I'm going to leave the rest to you." And with that, she ran out of the room. As Lotus left, June came in.

"Whoa... It's really cold in here..."

White puffs of steam hovered in front of their faces as they talked. June had already started to shiver.

"Hey, you don't need to be in here. You had a fever just a little bit ago. You should stay outside. We got this."

"No, I'm fine. My fever's gone now."

"But-"Junpei had scarcely opened his mouth... When the thunderous sound of metal upon metal rang out from behind unison, they spun around, to find that the door they had only recently come through... Was closed.

Junpei rushed to the door. Desperately, he grabbed hold of the doorknob.

It was cold-beyond cold. Merely touching it was painful. The doorknob had been frozen solid. They quickly deduced that the pipe next to the door had ruptured. Water released by the rupture had hit the door and frozen instantly.

Santa shoved Junpei aside and pounded against the door.

"Hey! Lotus! You're out there, right? Open the door!"

She wasted no time in responding.

"What do you want? What's going on?"

"The door won't open! Try opening it from that side. Please!"

"Ugh, fine. If you say so. Hold on..."

Soon, they could hear Lotus on the other side of the door...

Then the grunting ceased, and they could hear light panting, as if from exertion.

"It's no use. It won't budge. You've got more people in there. You figure it out."

"...Goddamnit." Santa was shaking like a newborn deer.

June was hugging herself and was shivering violently.

Even Junpei, with the heaviest clothes of any of them, was clearly feeling the cold. With every breath they took, they could feel the cold working its way deeper and deeper into their bodies.

"A-A-Anyway... L-Let's f-find a way out... If we don't get moving, w-we're gonna be permanent residents!"

"T-T-Two heads a-a-are better than n-none. I-I'm sure we'll figure something out..."

"Y-Y-Y-Yeah. Y-You're right. L-Let's just take a good l-look around this room, okay?"

"R-Right!"

They pushed in close to one another, and began to search.

Junpei huddled toward the large cabinet at the end of the northwest wall of the room. He covered his hands with his sleeves to avoid touching the cold metal and opened it. A variety of food and objects were inside. All he was interested in was a small bag. "Dry ice" was written on the side. A plan was hatched inside his mind, and he grabbed it.

"Dry ice is just frozen carbon dioxide, right?"

"Yeah, it is."

"I wonder how warm it has to get for it to turn back into gas again..."

"Hell if I know. How's that gonna help us, anyway?

"Oh, well, I figured we might be able to use it to get out of here."

They were about to move on when June spoke up.

"Carbon dioxide's sublimation point is -109 degrees. Any warmer than that, and it'll turn into gas. Any lower, and it becomes a solid."

Junpei looked at her, dumbfounded.

"How do you know that?"

"Tee-hee. Despite my looks, I'm the Qleen...bleh. Ahem...the Queen of random knowledge."

"Looks bad to mess up when you're showing off."

"Argle mouf."

"Oh, you're so cold your mouth's going numb?"

"Yef. Wats wite."

"...You're just doing that on purpose, aren't you?"

June giggled, and did her best to hide her guilt. At least she was still feeling good enough to joke around, Junpei told himself.

"C'mon guys... Don't you think that's kinda weird? I wonder why it doesn't turn into a liquid first..." Santa was now shivering at an astounding rate, but his curiosity seemed unaffected.

It did seem rather odd to Junpei, and he couldn't help but think about it.

June answered.

"But it can turn into a liquid. Carbon dioxide turns to liquid if you put it under high enough pressure. But at 1 atmosphere, normal air pressure..."

"It won't turn into a liquid, right?"

"That's right. Instead of melting, it'll do what's called "sublimating", and change immediately from a solid state to a gaseous one."

"See, that is weird. Water's a liquid between 32 degrees and 212 degrees... So why isn't that the case for carbon dioxide?"

June replied, with an answer that stunned both of them.

"There's a kind of ice that doesn't turn into liquid when it goes above 32 degrees."

Santa and Junpei both looked very confused.

"I...heard about it... Its melting point is 96 degrees."

"Ice with a melting point of 96 degrees? You mean there's water that freezes at 96 degrees?"

"Yeah. Well, you could also look at it as ice that won't melt until it's 96 degrees..."

Water that freezes at 96 degrees? Ice that won't melt until it's 96 degrees? Junpei was cold as hell, but this was too interesting to ignore. He did his best to warm up by rubbing his arms and stamping his feet, then put the question to June.

"So what's this ice with a melting point of 96 degrees called?"

"I heard it's called ice-9."

"Ice-9...?"

"Originally, ice-9 was a made-up substance invented by a science-fiction author. But recently, scientists have discovered that such a substance actually exists."

"Wait. Hold up. So is this thing called ice-9? Or is it water?"

"Like I said, if the ice is over 96 degrees it'll be liquid, if it's under that, it'll solidify. So you could think of it as a polymorph of H2O. Here, think of it like diamonds and graphite... They're both made of carbon, right? But depending on the structure of the crystallization, the hardness and structure are completely different."

"So you're saying normal water and this ice-9 are like that..."

"Yep."

She wasn't finished.

"Have you heard the story about the crystallization of glycerin? For 150 years after the discovery of glycerin, people cooled it, warmed it, and did all sorts of things to it... But whatever they did, it never crystallized. However, one day in 1920... Some glycerin that was en route to England by ship was discovered to have crystallized during the trip. Naturally, scientists worldwide wanted to research this new, crystallized form of glycerin, and began asking for samples of the seed. A seed is, of course, a sample of the original crystallized substance. With a seed crystal, further crystallization of glycerin would be a simple matter. However... Something very strange happened. Not only did the glycerin encouraged by seed crystals begin to crystallize, nearby samples did as well. It didn't end there."

"After that day, all glycerin in the world began to crystallize naturally when cooled to less than 64 degrees. Before that day, no matter how glycerin was cooled, it refused to crystallize. But once the crystallization had begun... It was almost like... How do I put it... It was almost like all the glycerin in the world was communicating. Communicating in some way that we can't sense..."

"What does that have to do with ice-9?"

To his surprise, it was Santa, and not June, who answered.

"What she's saying is that it's a lot like ice-9. What happened, I mean."

"A lot like...? That would be bad. If water everywhere started freezing at 96 degrees... Man..."

"It'd be the end of the world."

Junpei felt that Santa might not be treating the idea of the end of the world with the proper concern.

"At any rate, we're not gonna have to worry about the end of the world unless we can get out of here pretty damn quick."

He was right. Junpei shivered.

"All right guys, I think that's enough of that. I didn't think we'd get quite this far off-topic... I mean, I know I'm kinda at fault here, but we can't be screwing around any more. Seriously... I might go by the name Santa right now, but I didn't grow up in Iceland. I freakin' hate the cold. So, let's get crackin' all right? We gotta find a way out of here."

Santa stomped off, clearly doing his best to pretend the cold wasn't affecting him.

"Selfish, isn't he," thought Junpei to himself.

Still, Santa was right, and it was high time they got back to their search. The story of [ice-9] had him interested, but there'd be time to think about that once they'd gotten out of the freezer.

Next, he moved to the center of the room and opened the trap door. It lead down further into the floor and was large enough for several people to get inside. He hastily grabbed it's contents, which included a bottle and a rope.

"What're you planning to do with all that, start a circus act?" Santa was trying to make the best of the situation and crack a joke.

Now Junpei was really looking weird. His person couldn't carry everything he needed so he had it all strewn over himself. First up was the bag. He grabbed it and swung it several times against the wall.

"Woah! What the hell are you doing?" Both Santa and June hadn't been informed of his plan, and it looked as if he was going mad.

"I'm going to make a bomb to blast the ice off the handle!" Junpei finished abusing the poor dry ice bag and began to pour the contents into the water bottle.

"How do you know how to do that?" June had a look of worry over her face.

Wait, how did he know? Junpei had never done this in the past. It just seemed... Natural to him. That anyone in this situation would do this. He quickly twisted the cap on and wrapped the rope around the neck of the bottle.

"Everyone get inside the floor! Trust me, you don't want this thing to send a shard of ice flying right at your face!" Junpei had now fastened the rest of the rope to the handle of the door.

All three of them hunkered down into the cellar. Junpei reached over and grabbed a piece of the dry ice that fell out when he was breaking it against the wall earlier. He brought his arm back to throw it.

"Ready? Three, two, one!" Junpei threw the chunk of dry ice as hard as he could. With the same motion, he ducked down into the cellar with Santa and June. The explosion was loud, and they all covered their ears.

Junpei leapt up out of the cellar and ran to the door.

"Jumpy! The ice on the door! Is it gone?!"

"Yeah! It's gone! All right, let's see if it opens!"

Junpei grabbed the knob and pushed, with all his might. The door gave way easily, and all three of them tumbled out of the freezer at once.

"Hooray! We're out!" June, relieved, collapsed onto the floor.

"Move!" Santa shoved past Junpei and ran straight to the grill, which he immediately grabbed.

"Ow! Goddamnit! Hot hot hot hot hot! Fuck!" He proceeded to kick the grill in a futile but amusing fit of rage.

But...where was Lotus?

It took Junpei only a moment to find her... She was sitting on the counter, idly scratching her chest.

"Welcome back. I was starting to get tired of waiting for you guys."

With a great yawn, Lotus lowered herself off of the counter. Junpei clenched his teeth and walked toward her.

"What...were you doing...?"

"What do you mean, what was I doing? I was waiting."

"We were gonna die!"

"Oh yeah? But you didn't, so everything worked out all right, didn't it?"

"What the hell..."

"Just kidding! It might not look like it, but I was really worried."

"Don't gimme that crap!"

"I'm telling the truth! I mean, if you died, then I'd be in trouble too. If you died, then I'd be stuck here, and I'd die too. See? I did all I could. I even looked around to see if there was anything I could use to pry open the door. But I couldn't find anything. So all I could do was wait. I mean...what else did you want me to do? Call the cops?"

It was true that there wasn't much she could have done, but something about her tone...

Junpei gritted his teeth.

"Fine. But there's one thing I have to ask you."

"What's that?"

"You didn't close the door...did you?"

"Wh-What?! You think I closed the door on you? Why would I do something like that?! It closed on its own! I told you before, if you die, then I die too!"

She was right, and Junpei knew it. Without them, she'd be in very serious trouble. It seemed that an accident was the only explanation for the door's closure. If Lotus had really wanted to kill them, all she would have had to do was bar the door from the outside... And she hadn't. Well, she hadn't done anything. The most she was guilty of was laziness, or negligence, not attempted murder.

Junpei swallowed his anger, and did his best to apologize.

"Well. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I doubted you."

"Hmm? Oh. Yes, well, that's all right. As long as you understand." Lotus looked away and twirled her hair between her fingertips.

His vengeance against the grill complete, Santa swaggered back toward Junpei and Lotus.

"Hey! No more screwin' around you two! Break time's over. Especially for you, lady. You've just been sitting on that fat ass of yours while we were freezing to death."

"How rude! I was plenty busy!"

"Yeah, yeah, how about you put all that energy into something besides bitching. Let's go!"

Junpei took the time to warm back up and walked over to the keypad safe. He hadn't found anything in the freezer that could be a hint, yet his mind was telling him he knew the answer. 43... Why did those specific numbers come up? He punched them in and hit enter. It... Opened. Now Junpei surprising himself. Perhaps it was a stroke of luck? No, this has been happening ever since he woke up. It was if dormant memories were surfacing, and telling him what to do.

He reached inside and grabbed the card. It had the symbol of Saturn on it, exactly what they needed.

"Hey guys! Come over here!" Junpei stood up and ran over to the exit door with the card scanner.

The three walked up to him and seemed perplexed when he ran the card through the scanner.

"Hey! How'd you get that?" Santa was the first one to pipe up.

"It doesn't matter, we can leave now." Junpei tried to shrug it off. They all walked through the newly opened door, but Junpei could've swore he saw Santa smirk.


	5. Doors 3 7 and 8

They stepped out of the kitchen and into a hallway that looked rather familiar. A metal grate stretched from wall to wall. Beyond it were two elevators and the entrance to the kitchen. They had entered the kitchen from one door and come out the other. That meant their map of the ship's interior was accurate.

They laid the map out in front of them, and began to discuss their next were 4 possible routes. A, B, C and D... First, A and B... A and B both seemed to connect to an L-shaped , the 2 doors that lead to the room... Were both locked, and could not be opened. Next was route C...

They all began to dicuss their next move,

"This goes all the way to the main staircase."

"That means it's door 5. One of the numbered doors..."

"Then do you think we would meet up with the other 4 after this hallway...?"

"No, I don't think we will."

"Why not?"

"Look. There, by the stairs. See how the gate is opened? When we went into the kitchen, it was closed... But it's open now... What do you think that means?"

"They opened it..."

"Then if we take route C, we're going backwards."

"That would be pointless."

"Then that means..."

All four looked at the map. They all looked at the staircase, its lazy curve leading down, deeper into the ship.

"Route D, then."

"D it is."

"Yep, route D."

"Then we're set."

They jogged down the stairs, until they reached the C Deck. Just to be sure, they kept going, to check the deck beneath.

As they walked Junpei felt something digging into his pocket. He reached in to feel what it was and quickly yanked it back out. He had accidentally ran his finger along a knife. Junpei had completely forgot that he put it in his pocket when he was searching in the freezer. It hadn't been used for the puzzle, and they probably had no use for it now, but he still decided to keep it.

"Yeah, just like I thought. Deck D is totally underwater."

"Just like the bottom of the central staircase..."

The water gazed back at them, its smooth surface like a great mirror. As ominous as it was, Junpei took at least some comfort from the fact that the level hadn't gone up much since the last time he'd seen it.

They turned back to C Deck. It didn't take them long to find the 2 elevators in front of the stairs. They looked identical to the elevators on the top floor, with one exception... These elevators had a card reader on the wall between them. On the card reader was a strange mark...

"Hey, look, it's Lotus's symbol."

"Huh?"

"See, it's the woman symbol with a thorn on it. That seems like- Ouch! Ouch ouch ouch ouch!"

Lotus had taken hold of Junpei's hair.

She began to shake him violently, and he thought he heard a low growl coming from her throat.

Such violence... Junpei began to wonder if she was not the Devil itself... With an uncomfortable smile, June spoke up.

"This is a Mercury symbol. The thorn symbolizes the wings on Hermes's staff."

"Hermes, herpes, whatever. If we can't get this thing to work, these elevators aren't going anywhere."

"In other words, we need a key card with the Mercury symbol on it."

"Probably."

They gave up on the elevator and returned to the stairs. A hallway stretched out to the left. A great many doors lined both sides of the hallway. They weren't sure how many, but certainly enough to be discouraging.

"Damnit. If we try and search all these, the sun's gonna go down before we've done half of 'em." Santa was running out of patience. Who knows how much time had passed? They haven't heard the clock in a while.

"I think the sun already set..."

"I have a feeling this ship is the only thing that's going to be going down any time soon."

"That's even worse!"

"Well, we can come back to this hallway later. Let's check the hallway on the other side, shall we?"

Frustration and fear building, they walked back to the stairs. To their right was a small hallway. Quickly, they headed into it... It was approximately the same size as the alcove in front of the stairs. The hallway led toward the stern, and at its end was a set of double doors.

Junpei grabbed the one closest to him. He gave it a small tug and felt it move. It was unlocked. Thrilled to have found an unlocked door, he threw it open. Junpei didn't know what to make of what he saw. He simply stood, unable to speak. The others simply stared, open-mouthed.

After a few long moments, Santa managed to speak.

"Wha...what the hell is this..."

A massive room stretched out in front of them-more a cavern than a room. Its vastness was oppressive, and it bore down on the 4 companions. It was not empty, however. The entire room was filled with lines upon lines of beds. They were simple things, little more than pipe and thin mattresses.

"Is...is this a hospital?"

He had at last been able to put a name to the harsh scent that pervaded the room...

The room swam with the harsh, biting smell of antiseptic. In the center of the room were shelves stacked with medicine, and a number of medical devices the function of which Junpei did not know. More importantly, however, on the back wall of the room were four doors. three of them were emblazoned with large single-digit numbers made with thick, red paint.

The door on the left was labeled 3.

The second door from the left had no number, but the third had been given a 7.

...And the right-most door had an 8.

There could be no doubt,they were numbered doors. It did strike Junpei as strange, however, that the door between 3 and 7 should be blank. What, he wondered, could it mean...

"Let's take a look at the doors." Junpei headed toward the doors, weaving his way between the beds.

He started with door 3, on the left, and moved to the right until he reached door 8.

"We have to activate the RED, or the numbered doors won't... Wait a minute..." Lotus had spotted something the others had not.

"What's wrong?"

"Look. The display on the RED... There's nothing on it..."

"Huh?"

"Don't you remember? The RED at the central staircase? If no one was inside, it said VACANT..."

"Oh yeah... You're right..."

"But this one..."

The four of them all stared at the lifeless RED.

"I wonder if it's broken?"

"Only one way to find out."

They all placed their hands on the scanner to see if the RED could detect them.

It didn't respond. They pulled at the lever, and still it did nothing.

As they soon discovered, it wasn't only the RED for door 8 that was behaving strangely. The RED on door 7 also refused to respond. And door 3 was similarly silent... None of them would respond.

What did it mean?

"Haha. I knew it. They're broken. Zero sure sucks at maintenance." Despite their now precarious situation, Santa did not think that was enough to not be able to joke around.

"No... That's impossible. You really think Zero, who prepared all of this... Would make such a stupid, simple mistake?"

"Maybe, but that doesn't explain why this thing ain't workin'."

It was at that moment that they heard a voice from behind them.

"I believe the bottom of the device has been removed..."

They spun around to see...

"Snake!"

...But it was more than just Snake.

Ace, Clover, and Seven quickly filed into the room as well.

Although they were glad to see one another, it wasn't terribly surprising that they had. If it had been the other party who'd opened the gate in front of the kitchen, it wasn't unreasonable that they'd bump into one another eventually. The rest of Snake's team, however, did look rather surprised.

"How...?"

"How did you guys..."

"How did you end up here?"

Their group took turns speaking, as if relying on the other to advance the conversation.

After a moment of silence and surprise, everyone suddenly began to talk, desperate to exchange information. They talked about the rooms they'd been through, and how they'd ended up in the same place. Of course, none of it was very useful information, but that hardly mattered. They were happy to simply see one another again.

Although the level of cheer varied greatly from person to person, each one of them was wearing some manner of smile. Almost as though they had already forgotten about the death of the 9th Man... No, thought Junpei, perhaps that wasn't it.

Perhaps thoughts of his death were what drove them to smile at one another. Not in a morbid or hateful way, no. The 9th Man had died... But they were still alive, and that was something to be happy about. A sort of simple, uncomplicated joy, Junpei thought, the joy of being alive. Still alive... He felt sorry for the 9th Man, but more than anything Junpei was just happy to be alive.

"...There you have it. Our half of the story." His part finished, Ace fell silent.

For a moment, Junpei was silent, in thought. Then he spoke.

"Okay, lemme see if I've got all this straight... When you guys got here, the bases for the REDs were already gone. And you looked all over this room, but you couldn't find anything."

"So you figured... That there might be something in the hallway with all the doors."

"So you went and had a look?"

"Yeah."

"And while you were looking around, you heard voices?"

"Uh-huh."

"So you followed the voices and came back here."

"Indeed. And that was how we found you."

Junpei examined the 3 REDs again, just in case. On the bottom of each was a long, thin gap. It looked like a slot for...something. Probably something electronic.

"Well...this isn't good... If the RED is inactive... We can't keep going..." June spoke the words they had all been thinking of.

"Well, what about that hallway over there? Isn't there anywhere else we can go?"

Ace was quick to respond. He seemed to know the most about the situation they were in.

"No, there isn't. There are plenty more hospital rooms, but nothing else."

"Hospital rooms? That's what's behind all those doors?"

"Yes. There are a number of individual rooms, in addition to this large one. There was a door at the end of the hallway, but it was locked."

"There was an astrological symbol engraved near the keyhole, however. I was able to get a good, ah, feel of it. I believe it was the symbol of Jupiter."

"Not again... Those goddamn things are everywhere..."

For a moment, everyone was silent, deep in thought.

"While we're asking what things mean... What's the deal with this room? I mean... I thought this was a cruise ship, but I can't imagine a cruise ship would have a hospital like this..."

Junpei did a three sixty of the room and fully took it in. Quite a large room indeed.

Of all people it was Seven who answered, and with calm confidence.

"Well, I figure it's probably a hospital ship. Chances are, it's the Gigantic."

"The Gigantic...?" Junpei looked confused. So did everyone else.

Seven knit his brows for a moment, then began to explain.

"The Gigantic..."

He explained that she had been a sister ship to the Titanic, built in the early 20th century. The Titanic had 2 sister ships, who were identical to one another in nearly every aspect. The Gigantic was said to be 1 of them. She was initially intended to be a passenger liner, like the Titanic, but soon after the ship was launched the First World War began, and she was pressed into duty by the British navy as a hospital ship.

Some time later, the Gigantic was damaged by a German mine in the Aegean Sea. She managed to run aground after the incident, and consequently was not sunk. What, then, happened to the Gigantic after her fateful encounter in the Aegean Sea?

One theory ran that a man named Lord Gordain purchased her. Lord Gordain, it seemed, had been one of the few survivors of the Titanic tragedy, and that trauma had turned him into an obsessive collector of all things related to the Titanic. As his obsession deepened, he began to desire the Titanic itself. That, of course, was impossible,the Titanic lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Gigantic, however, had not suffered such a dire fate, and as she was identical to her sister ship, she caught Lord Gordain's eye.

"So, you're saying this Lord Gordain bought this ship...?"

"Yeah. At least I think I am."

"That's impossible! No way we're in some boat that's almost 100 years old! What proof is there?" Santa obviously found it hard to believe.

"Proof?"

"Proof that this ship is really the Gigantic!"

"Well, uh... This ship's got stuff that's like the Titanic and a hospital ship. So I just figured-"

"Don't tell me that's your only reason?"

"N-No, I've got more..."

"Like...?"

"Well, uh, I mean..."

Seven looked around desperately, doing anything to avoid meeting Lotus's piercing stare.

He scratched his head for a moment, then gave up. Finally, he opened his mouth.

"I dunno..."

Lotus sighed and shook her head...

"I guess your memory isn't back yet, is it?"

"Yeah... Sorry about that..."

"Hey hey hey hey! Wait a minute! "Memory isn't back"!?"

Junpei was, he felt, legitimately shocked by what seemed to be new, and very important, information. Everyone else, however, seemed unimpressed.

In fact, they all looked at Junpei as though he had said something very strange. He decided to revise his attitude for the next question.

"Wait... Was I the only one...that didn't know?"

Everyone nodded.

"Why!?"

"Oh...yeah, I guess I didn't tell you, huh... I told the rest of 'em before we ran into you on the stairs. I told 'em I couldn't remember a damn thing from before I woke up."

"...What?"

Then, almost as if to save Junpei from further embarrassment... A bell began to ring from far away. It sounded as though it was the clock at the main stairway.

Junpei counted each chime, carefully. 10... 11... 12.

"It's midnight..."

"Then we've still got 6 hours left, right?" Clover had been stuck to Snake's side the whole time since they entered the room.

"We don't have any time to screw around. Let's get going. We gotta find the missing parts for the REDs."

Everyone knew Seven was right, but they didn't know what to do.

"What do you mean "find"? How on Earth do you propose we do that?"

"We've looked everywhere in this only leaves one place to look. Well, I guess that's not really right..."

"W-Wait! Don't tell me you mean we need to search all of the other rooms?!"

"Don't freak out. We already searched 4 of them. We just have to split up the rest between the 8 of us. If each person does 6 rooms, that'll be 48 rooms, right?"

"So there are 48 rooms left?" Her earlier experiences had apparently not encouraged Lotus to trust Seven.

Seven scratched his head awkwardly.

"I dunno."

After a little more discussion, they split up, and headed toward the rooms to begin searching them.

Junpei was chosen to search the rooms on the starboard side, moving from fore to aft... They also determined when they would return to report their findings: The next time the clock sounded the time. When it did, they would meet back in the large central room full of beds. If, during their search, any one of them were to locate the missing components, they were to yell for the others.

If this strategy failed, they'd return to discuss their options later. The details decided, they left to begin searching. Out into the hallway they went, each to the rooms they'd been assigned. However...

From far away, Junpei heard the bell ring. It did so only once. it was 1 a.m. He jogged through the entrance of the large hospital room to find 6 of the others already there. Ace, Santa, Clover, June, Seven, and Lotus. They had gathered in front of door number 8.

Or perhaps, to be accurate, they had gathered in front of the RED next to door number 8. Had one of them found the missing piece?

"What happened, guys?!"

It was June who answered him.

"Jumpy, look!" She was pointing at the RED.

He pushed through the others until he stood in front of it. Immediately, he knew what she had meant. The display on the front of the RED read "VACANT". Junpei sighed.

"C'mon guys, who was it? I thought we're supposed to yell if we found it."

"Well..."

Junpei wondered why she was hesitating. The others looked as confused as June, but kept their mouths shut.

"What the hell? What is up with you guys?"

They all knew something he didn't and Junpei wasn't about to leave things that way. Finally, Lotus frowned and spoke.

"Well, that's the thing... We don't know."

"You don't know?"

"When I got back, it was already like this. There was no one else here... That means I was the first one back, but... The missing parts were already back in the RED."

Junpei looked at the bottom of the RED again, just to make sure. The slot that had been open on the bottom was now covered with metal. Clearly, whatever had been missing had been returned.

"What about the other two...?"

"They're the same."

Junpei quickly examined the other two boxes. Satisfied that they were also repaired, but still very confused, he returned to the others.

"All right, I just wanna be sure here. Nobody has any idea what the hell happened here, right?"

Ace and June nodded silently. Seven raised his hands as if to say "not me", and Santa just shrugged. Only Clover lowered her head and did nothing.

"Huh? ...Wait a minute..."

That was when he noticed...

"Where's Snake?" Junpei swept his eyes across the room a second time, but Snake was nowhere to be seen.

"Does that mean that he found them...?"

"I've no idea. There's nothing to suggest it, but nothing to suggest he didn't either."

"I don't suppose we'll know until we can ask him in person."

"Well, whatever he did or didn't do, he's pretty damn late. What the hell is he up to?"

"Maybe he's lost..."

"Yeah, well, that seems likely. Dude can't see. I don't know how he gets around in the first place..."

Clover raised her head.

"No, that's impossible!"

Suddenly, she was shouting.

"Yeah, my brother's blind, but he's got really great hearing! He can get around as well as anyone who can see! So he...he couldn't get lost... That's impossible..."

Clover had started to shake, and the knuckles of her hands had gone white. She spun around, but before she did Junpei noticed tears welling up in her eyes.

"I'm gonna go look for him!"

The words were barely out of her mouth when she began to run.

"Hey! Hold on, Clover! Wait!"

Junpei cried out to her, but he was too slow. She kept going, and before anyone else could react, she was gone.

"Damnit... What should we do now?"

"Well, the RED is working now..."

"No, we're not leaving 2 people behind! We should go look for them!" June was always prepared to defend someone. She was too nice to this game.

"Oh, yes, what an excellent idea! We just wasted a bunch of time looking for some piece of electronic junk, now let's waste some more by looking for a couple of idiots!" Santa wasted no time voicing his mind.

"Then remain here, if you feel you must, but there's no time. We've only 5 hours left." As usual, Ace had the voice of authority. Always calm and always logical.

Junpei and the others nodded to one another, and took off at a run.

In front of the stairs that led to B Deck, they decided to split up. They quickly assigned search areas, and went their separate ways. Soon only two of them were left. Those two were Junpei and June, who had been a few steps behind the others.

They looked everywhere they could think of, but Snake was nowhere to be found.

Lotus looked around at 6 frustrated faces and spoke.

"We can't keep looking for Snake. Wherever he is, it's not here. We need to get moving."

Junpei couldn't disagree with what she was saying. Snake seemed to have completely disappeared. There was no point to wasting any more time. The others seemed to be having similar thoughts, but they stayed silent. Finally, Seven spoke.

"We don't got a choice... Lotus is right. We're not gonna find Snake. There's a problem, though. We've gotta figure out who's gonna go through which door."

"Yes. I have a proposal." She walked back and forth across the floor, her heels clicking against the wood.

Finally, she stopped.

"Why don't we decide on 1 person to sacrifice?"

"Sacrifice?!"

Everyone had a mixed look of confusion and worry.

"Well, perhaps that's a bit of a harsh word, but yes. You've all figured it out by now, haven't you? We can't all make it through those doors. If we split into 2 teams, of 4 and 3 people respectively, then 3 people will be left behind. If we split into 2 teams, of 5 and 2 people respectively, then 2 people will be left behind. But, if we split into 2 groups of 3, and leave 1 person out, then only 1 person will be left behind."

It wasn't pleasant, but she was right. There wasn't any way that the numbers worked out... If one group was 4, the other group would always have a digital root that didn't match a door.

When Seven spoke, his voice was strained.

"Then... You're saying we gotta decide who's gonna stay behind?"

"Yes, we do. Given our circumstances, it's logically and morally the best solution. If the other 6 are to survive, then 1 person has to sacrifice themselves."

"No! That's too cruel!"

"What's so cruel about it?!

"To...to just sacrifice someone like that..."

"Then what's your plan?! Maybe we should sacrifice two people, instead of just one!"

"That's not what I meant! We shouldn't sacrifice anyone!"

"I told you, that's impossible! Wake up!"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down you two." Santa stepped between Lotus and June.

"Look, what Lotus is trying to say is that you should aim to bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people, right?"

"Exactly. That's how democracy works. And for that reason, I think the only fair way to decide who'll be sacrificed is through a vote. What do you think?"

"No, that's terrible."

"I'm not asking you! Shut up! What about you, Santa?"

"Me? Well...I agree, I guess."

"All right, that's 1 vote for. Counting mine, that's two. Seven?"

"I can't say I agree with you, but... We don't exactly have a choice. If we don't do somethin', we're all gonna die."

"Glad to see you get it. If I can get 1 more vote, then it's decided. What about you, Clover?"

Clover had moved away from the group, and was sitting on one of the beds. Her whole body drooped. Junpei didn't know if she'd even heard Lotus's proposal. Lotus walked over to Clover, and gently laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Your brother has to be behind one of the numbered doors. We searched everywhere, but we didn't find him. Doesn't that mean he has to have gone through one of them somehow?"

Clover slowly lifted her face.

"Let's go look for him together, okay? If we sacrifice 1 person, then we can go look for him. You...agree with me, right?"

Clover nodded once.

"The motion carries."

Lotus spun around, and walked toward Junpei.

"Now, let's start a vote to-"

"That won't be necessary." Ace had barely spoken for Lotus's entire speech, and everyone jumped a little.

Six pairs of eyes turned to look at him. He didn't seem to notice, or even care.

"I will stay. That should solve our problem, yes?"

"A-Ace! What are you saying?! No, you can't do that! That won't solve anything!" June's voice shook, and she looked around desperately for someone to agree with her.

Ace simply looked at her.

"June, I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me. I said I would stay, but I never said I would sacrifice myself. I trust you, each and every one of you. I believe you'll come back for me."

"Whoa whoa whoa, there's optimistic and then there's just nuts. Those doors only go 1 way-you go in, you don't come out. If we go through 'em-"

"You won't be able to return, correct?"

"Yeah."

"True, but that will not be the case once you've escaped from the ship."

"What...?"

"Please, I beg you, once you've escaped, come back and rescue me. Ideally within the time limit Zero has given us..."

Finally, Junpei could hold his tongue no longer.

"No, that's ridiculous! There's no way we could get back in time! We've only got 5 hours left. We don't even know where the hell we are. How on Earth are we gonna find someone to come and rescue you?!"

"Then perhaps you would prefer to stay, instead of me? Or perhaps you would be willing to leave June behind?"

Ace's voice was dignified, and without a hint of cruelty or malice. Junpei had no rebuttal.

"You see? There's no other choice. Then I see we've come to our conclusion. Go on. Don't worry yourselves about me. Go, quickly!"

Junpei stood frozen by indecision, unable to move. June bit her lip so hard that Junpei feared she would break the skin. Santa stood against a wall, calm and aloof. Seven tore his beanie from his head, and turned it over anxiously in his hands. Only Clover stared at Ace, with an expression Junpei was unable to decipher. Lotus's attitude, however, was different from the others.

"Good. Let's accept his kind offer, then."

She smiled, her eyes bright.

Ace answered with a smile of his own.

"Good. I think this is the best for me. Perhaps I'll be able to take a nap. Perhaps it's my age, but I get tired so easily these days."

As he spoke, Ace lowered himself down to the floor next to one of the beds. From somewhere deep in the ship, Junpei suddenly heard the screeching of metal on metal.

It was almost as if the ship were screaming.

Would it really hold until their time limit was up? Already, D Deck was flooded... In the sudden silence, the only sound was the sad metal wail of the ship. Unsurprisingly, it was Lotus who spoke first.

"Well, what are you waiting for? We're wasting time. Why don't we hurry it up?"

As if a spell had been broken, the others all began to talk at once.

"You're right. We should get goin'. That's all we can do right now."

"Seriously. Honestly, I was getting kinda sick of listening to you guys talk."

"You too, Santa...?"

"I...I have to find my brother..."

"W-Wait! All of you! Let's just calm down and think about this! There has to be a way to get everyone out! There has to be! R-Right, Jumpy?! Say something!"

"Y-Yeah, let's think... There's...gotta be another way..."

His words sounded hollow and fake.

"Fine! Forget about it! I'll figure it out on my own!"

She spun around, and ran toward Ace. He had slumped down next to the bed when June grabbed his arm and pulled.

"C'mon, Ace, please stand up! You can't give up yet! We just have to sit down together and think about this! We'll figure out a way that we can all get out of here!"

Then it happened. Ace fell forward. He slumped over onto the wooden floor, his body folded in half like a boxer out cold.

"Ace!"

June cried out and dropped to her knees beside him. She put her arm around his neck and did her best to lift him up.

"What happened, Ace?! Say something!"

She shook him, frantically. His eyes fluttered open.

"I'm all right..."

His voice was weak, and slightly slurred. He held out his left arm, and slowly opened his hand... In it was a syringe, and a small vial. The vial was empty. It had only recently been emptied, a few drops clung to the sides.

There was a label taped to the side of the container... It read Soporil-Beta.

"Soporil...Beta?"

Junpei had no idea what it meant, or what kind of medicine it might be.

"Did...did you use this?!"

"Yes... It's just...anesthetic... I'll be...fine..."

"Anesthetic?"

"I found it...earlier... While we were searching the...hospital rooms... I thought it might be useful...later... Ha... I didn't think I'd be...using it on...myself..."

"Why did you do this...?"

"Didn't I...tell you? I'd like to take a...nap... I really am...very tired..."

Junpei knew that wasn't why he'd done it. Ace had injected himself with anesthetic to forestall Junpei and June's attempts to bring him along. If he couldn't move, there was nothing they could do. He'd injected himself so that they would be forced to leave him behind.

"I'd just like to sleep...a little... Could you...keep it down...?"

"No! Don't, Ace! Don't fall asleep!"

"Ah...you feel...warm... So...comfortable... I think I'll have...a nice...dream..."

Ace's eyelids drooped further and further... Almost as though he were...dying...

She shook his shoulder, again and again... But this time, he didn't respond. Only the gentle rising and falling of his chest told them he was alive. Junpei was relieved to see he was, in fact, still breathing. He lifted Ace up off the floor, and laid him on the bed he'd been leaning against. When Junpei turned around, Lotus gave him a look of pity.

"Well, we really don't have a choice now. We can't let his sacrifice go to waste. Right?"

She wasn't feeling any remorse, Junpei was sure of that. Still, he held no grounds upon which to oppose her. It felt wrong, but he had to agree. Then suddenly, Santa spoke.

"Yeah, but we're not done choosing yet, are we?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Well, we haven't decided who's going in what door. Enough of this screwin' around. Let's decide. You first Lotus. Which door do you want?"

"I...um...I want door number 8. It's the same number as my bracelet number."

"Got it. You're 8. You're next, Seven. Which one do you want?"

" I'll take 7. I can't get along with that old lady."

"What?! What did you just say!?"

Her face distorted by rage, Lotus took a step toward Seven. He threw up his hands, and made a face like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Ugh! You're going to get it next time!"

She shot him a glare that would have melted steel, then turned and stalked off.

"All right, who's next..."

Santa's gaze moved across the 3 people left. Finally, they stopped on Junpei.

"Junpei, which door do you want?"

"I want to go through door number 3."

"No. You can't."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because it's impossible. If we split ourselves into 3 and 3, then we give up on going through door 3. The bracelet numbers for the 6 of us are (345678). There are 2 combinations that can go through door [3] with 3 people: (345) or (678). That's it. Of course, 2 teams can't go through the same door."

"I see... That means 1 team would get left behind."

"That's right."

"That doesn't happen if we go through door 7 or 8?"

"No, they're fine. We've got 3 options."

Santa began to explain.

-Plan A-

Go through door [7] with (358), and go through door [8] with (467).

-Plan B-

Go through door [7] with (457), and go through door [8] with (368).

-Plan C-

Go through door [7] with (367), and go through door [8] with (458).

"Those are the only 3 options. That's it. At least, if we want to get all 6 of us out of here."

That was when Junpei realized...

Plan A divides into 2 teams: (358) and (467).

Plan B divides into 2 teams: (457) and (368).

Plan C divides into 2 teams: (367) and (458).

There was one thing they all had in common...

In every single combination, 5 and 6 were never on the same team.

In other words, if all 6 people were to move forward, Junpei and June would be separated.

June and Junpei had been friends when they were kids. He trusted her more than anyone else on the ship.

If he chose 7 or 8 he'd be taken away from her. Was that something he was prepared to do...?

"Anyway, that's the deal, so think it over. You've got 2 choices: 7 or 8. You can't choose 3. If you choose [3], you're gonna be leaving 3 people behind to die. So, what're you gonna do? 7 or 8. Time to choose."

Junpei thought hard.

"Sorry, Santa, but I still want to go through door 3."

"What?! That's nuts! You've gotta be crazy! Why the hell are you so obsessed with that door?"

"I'm just..." Junpei paused.

He swallowed the words he'd been about to say.

"I'm just curious about door 3. That's all."

"That doesn't explain shit!"

"I've got a reason. I'd be happy to explain it to you if you'll just come with me."

With that, he began walking toward the door. Their curiosity likely getting the better of them, the others followed. A few of them looked a little suspicious, but Junpei told himself that wouldn't matter.

He kept walking and kept silent.

Eventually, they arrived at the number 3 door. Junpei stopped.

"I'm curious about the RED. Seven, would you mind authenticating for me?"

"Huh? Why?"

"Please, just do it."

He stared at Junpei for a moment, then grunted and laid his palm heavily on the scanner.

The number 7 had been entered into the RED.

"Next is June. Please touch the RED just like Seven did."

"Jumpy... What are you trying to figure out?"

Junpei thought about his answer for a moment.

"I think I might have found another way out."

That got them excited. Just as Junpei had intended.

"Now please, June..."

7 + 6 = 13 - 1 + 3 = 4. With those 2 numbers in the RED, Junpei had what he wanted.

He casually placed his own hand on the scanner, and the 3rd asterisk blinked on.

4 + 5 = 9

"All right... The only people who haven't authenticated now are Santa, Clover, and Lotus."

"So? What's your point?"

"You don't get it? Think about it. What's the sum of your number and Clover's?"

"12..."

"And what's the digital root of that?"

"3..."

"Which is Santa's number. By the way Lotus, what's the number that's currently in the RED?"

"7 + 6 + 5 = 18... It would be (9), right?"

"Yes. And what will the digital root be if you add 3 to that?"

"3... The door's number."

"There you go."

"Hey! Wait a minute! What the hell are you up to?!"

"I'm not up to anything. I'm just waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"I'm waiting for the balance to shift. Santa... Or Lotus and Clover... Once one of you moves, the others won't have a choice. So I'm waiting."

Junpei laid his hand almost casually on the lever.

"Y-You son of a bitch! You tricked us! Then all that stuff you were going on about is all bullshit!"

"Bullshit? I don't think so. Didn't I tell you I'd figured out another way to get out of here? This is it."

"Why the hell would you do something like this?!"

Junpei glanced at June.

"You did this just so you could go through the same door as June...?! That's it?!"

Santa was furious. His face was red, and flecks of spit flew from his lips as he spoke.

Junpei closed his eyes calmly, and then opened them again.

"So, who's it going to be? Santa...? Or Lotus and Clover...?"

"Shit...!"

Lotus leapt forward. She grabbed Clover by the sleeve, and ran for Junpei and the door.

Caught by surprise, Santa froze for a moment, then shot forward like a bullet from a gun.

Lotus had a headstart, but Santa had the advantage in size and speed. Almost immediately, he passed Lotus and Clover-

"No! Wait!"

Santa did not hesitate. He slammed his hand down on the RED.

"This is insane! This isn't right!"

He glared at Junpei, his chest heaving.

"Yes, well... You may be right."

Junpei's voice was cold, but not without effort. He turned to the RED and pulled the lever. With the sound of metal on metal, the door opened. It would only remain so for 9 was no time to think.

Junpei and his 3 reluctant companions jumped into the door's gaping mouth, one after sooner did they enter than an all-too-familiar noise sounded from their left wrists.

The detonators had activated. Junpei looked back only once, and saw Lotus and Clover on the other side of the closing door. They stood still, stopped where they had been when Santa reached the RED. The defeat and desperation on their faces tore at Junpei's heart. Then the door closed, and they were gone.

"You son of a bitch, Junpei! This isn't fair!" Santa rounded on Junpei, lightning crackling in his eyes and his knuckles white.

"Do you realize what you just did?! You leave them out there, and they can't-"

"Shut it! That's enough!"

It hadn't been Junpei that spoke, but Seven.

"We gotta find the DEAD, or none of this is gonna matter!"

The clock was ticking. The DEAD was their only chance at survival. Unless they could find it, and deactivate their detonators, the four of them would be dead.

"We got less than a minute left! No time for screwin' around! Get moving!"

They scattered, and began to scour the room. The Deactivation Device was nowhere to be found. Corridors stretched out in 3 directions, but every one was blocked off by a wall of metal. There was only one way out. One other door. Seven ran for the door, a rusty iron thing. His large hands grabbed hold of the handle and pulled. The room inside was pitch black. They could see nothing beyond the small patch of light that spilled through the doorway. Junpei stuck his head through the door, and looked around the room. Almost immediately, he spotted the blinking red light on the right wall.

He stepped into the room and nearly fell down. The floor was...Slippery. He stopped, and glanced down at his feet. What was this?

"Hey! What the hell're you doing?! Get over there!"

Junpei felt Seven's heavy hand against his back, and stumbled across the room. The other 3 piled in behind him. They all felt immediately that something was wrong. Nothing that could be easily identified, only a sense that something terrible shared the room with them... But there was no time to say so.

They all started running. In the dark, it was hard to tell where the wall was... All they could see was the tiny red light, blinking at them over, and over, and over...

Then finally, suddenly, they were there. In quick succession, they all slammed their hands against the scanner panel.

Seven leaned against the wall, gulping air. As his breathing began to return to normal, he glanced at his left wrist and grunted. Junpei could hear him laughing in the dark, but could barely make out the larger man's face.

The sound of retching came from Santa's direction.

:W-What the hell is this smell?! This is vile! I'm gonna puke!"

So desperate had they been in their race to the DEAD that no one had noticed the horrible smell that pervaded the room. It was a terrible, nauseating stench, like burnt and rotten meat. Adrenaline had drowned it out, but now it rolled over Junpei in waves, forcing itself into his nose with every breath he took. He felt his stomach clench, and bile rise up in his throat.

"Let's get the lights on first. There's a switch over...here..."

The light that spilled in from the door barely illuminated a small switch plate next to the door.

Slowly, with the toll of the last few minutes apparent in his gait, Seven walked toward it. He stopped as he got close, and extended his fingers toward the switch... There was a soft click as the lights came on. It had scarcely faded when another noise pierced the air. A scream.

"Eeeeeyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Junpei's breath stopped in his throat. His heart ceased to beat. Time froze. His mind scrambled to make sense of what he saw before him. What was left of the body sat in a sea of blood. Chunks of flesh, torn from the body, sat in the blood like tiny islands in a great, red sea. A vast, ragged hole had been torn in the torso, and what remained of his intestines spilled out of it like fresh spaghetti. Smaller chunks of meat had splattered against the wall, and become stuck there as they dried. Globules of yellowish fat had left trails like tiny slugs as gravity pulled them down the wall, even as they dried to it.

"Looks like an explosion..."

Seven's voice was low and strained.

"Just like the 9th Man... The detonator in his bracelet set off the bomb in his gut."

It looked as though the explosion had been quite powerful. His legs were both bent in an odd, unnatural way, and his left arm had split open, exposing the painfully white bone of his ulna. His bracelet lay next to him. It seemed to have hit the wall hard enough to have shattered the display, which lay on the ground in pieces. Half of his head had simply collapsed. The blood coating almost made it look like raw pizza dough covered in tomato sauce.

His clothes, too, were covered in blood. The burgundy tie, the white shirt, the jacket with the yellow piping, and the gray slacks... They were all familiar to Junpei.

"Is that...Snake...?"

Santa's voice wavered as he spoke, his mouth dry.

Finally, Junpei spoke.

"Why did this happen..."

"Noooooooooo!"

Suddenly June was screaming, her voice broken. It was an eerie scream, full of insanity, and not entirely human.

"No! No! Noooooooooo!"

She shook her head violently, and grabbed fistfulls of her own hair. Junpei could hear the sound of hair tearing.

"No! Stop it, June!"

He grabbed for her wrist. but as he did, June leapt up, and ran toward the exit.

"Please! Get me out of here! You have to let me out of here!"

She screamed at the door, and her fists slammed against it with a hollow sound. Junpei could see drops of blood on her knuckles.

"Why are you doing these horrible things to us?! What did we do to deserve this?!"

She screamed again, a desperate, mindless cry. Her fists flailed against the door.

"Get me out of here! Please! Please, just let me out!"

Junpei couldn't watch anymore. He ran to June and wrapped his arm around her, pulling the screaming girl away from the door.

"No! Get off of me! Let me go! Let me go!"

She scrambled for a moment, her legs skittering across the floor, but her resistance didn't last long. As suddenly as her outburst had begun, it was over. The manic energy disappeared, and her body went limp in Junpei's arms. June collapsed toward the floor, and Junpei knelt down with her. He felt drops of something warm and wet... Was she...crying?

A moment later, she began to sob. Her shoulders shook, and great, hot tears rolled down her face like rain.

"We're gonna be fine... It's gonna be all right, June. It's going to be okay, Kanny."

Her name was a whisper.

"I'll be here with you, okay?"

She nodded once.

"Thank you... Thank you so much, Jumpy."

Her trembling voice pulled at Junpei's heart. He stroked her hair gently. His face was so close to her. The scent of her hair was...nostalgic...

"Do you feel better?"

"Yes... But I'd like to stay here... For a little while, at least. Jumpy's body is...so warm..."

Several minutes passed before June's tears had dried. Junpei stood up. He bent down, put his arms under June's and helped her to her feet.

A person was dead. They had died in that room, in a terrible way. Junpei knew there was no way he could make himself forget that. There was no way any of them could forget it, but mourning would do no good. They spread out to search the room, but each felt as if their heart was made of lead.

Junpei felt a surge of anger run through him. Now two people were dead, and more could well be on the way. Zero wasn't playing around. Akane didn't deserve this. If she died during this game... No, Junpei couldn't even think of such a thing. Both of them were going to get out alive, no matter what.

His train of thought was interrupted when the silence was broken.

"Do you remember the rabbit hutch?"

"...Huh?"

June still looked sadly pale, but there was a smile on her face. But what made her bring that up?

"Of course I remember. How could I forget something like that? It was terrible..."

They were in the 6th grade. Junpei and June had been assigned to take care of the classroom pets, the rabbits. Their chief duty was to clean the hutches every morning. On the final day of school before summer vacation began, Junpei overslept. He rushed to school, and found June standing in front of the rabbit hutches. No sooner had Junpei arrived than June began to cry. He had no idea why until he looked behind her, into the rabbit hutch.

The first thing he saw was blood. The hutch was filled with the dead bodies of the rabbits. Even after their teachers and friends came to see what the commotion was, June couldn't stop crying.

"I just kept crying and crying, until you came over. You held my hand and you looked very serious and you said... "Don't cry. I'm gonna catch the person who did this." After you told me that, I finally stopped crying."

"Well, the real fun started after you quit crying. You told me we were gonna catch the killer together."

June smiled, and a little of the flush of life returned to her cheeks.

"Then we decided that we'd ambush them."

"Yeah, I remember."

The school also kept roosters and guinea pigs. Junpei and June had decided the murderer would likely return to finish off the rest of the animals. They would ambush the killer at night. Junpei and June hid behind the hutch at dusk and waited. It was a warm summer night. The quiet sound of crickets whispered through the air. As the sun went down, the stars began to wink at them from the sky. And June's...Akane Kurashiki's face... That night was something Junpei knew he would never forget, as long as he lived.

"But the murderer never showed up. We waited for them all summer vacation, and they never showed up."

"Yeah, but the animals didn't get attacked either. I think all that work amounted to something, you know?"

He'd felt the same way, but it was good to hear her say it.

" Although you know, if you think about it, we were probably taking on a lot more than we could handle."

"What do you mean?"

She looked up at him, confused.

"Well, c'mon... We were just kids. If whoever'd killed the rabbits had actually showed up, they probably would've had a knife or something. I mean, you must've been pretty worried, right?"

"I...I wasn't worried... Because you were... Because you were there with me."

She blushed furiously.

"You know, no one else wanted to take care of the animals."

Clearly embarrassed, she tried desperately to change the subject.

"I was the only one who asked to do it, at first."

"Yeah, boys don't really wanna bother with taking care of animals, you know?"

"Well, yeah, but you asked to do it after I did, didn't you?"

"Ehhh... If it wasn't the rabbits, they were gonna make me do something else. You know how that school was. I figured it'd be better if I was working with somebody who wasn't too much of a loud-mouth, right? Somebody who wasn't gonna tell on me if I felt like blowing it off..."

"Really? That's why you volunteered?"

"Yeah, yeah it is."

He nodded quickly and much too earnestly and then quickly looked away at something very important. That hadn't been the reason, of course. He had asked to take care of the rabbits so that he could be near June. But it had been so long ago... He couldn't bring himself to tell her how he'd felt back then. It would be...embarrassing.

"Well, we don't really have time to be walking down memory lane like this, you know? We've gotta figure out a way out of this room. Otherwise..."

June nodded curtly, then turned and walked away. Junpei turned around and looked at the room. At Snake's body.

Chunks of flesh and organs still lay on the floor. The conversation he and June had been having scarcely fit their surroundings. But perhaps, that was simple human nature. Despite such a situation-or perhaps because of it-the mind turned to the farthest thing from death that it could find. Still, Junpei couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt at wanting so desperately to live when Snake lay dead before him. He had to live... He wanted a life again, a life...with June in it... As he stared at the clumps of blackened flesh, all Junpei could think of was how much he wanted to live.

He ignored everything in the room and made his way to the locked exit. It looked... Familiar? Junpei couldn't quite pin it down. His fingers ran down the keypad next to the door. That's when it struck. Very quickly pain shot through his skull. It felt like his head was about to explode. Junpei winced hard and held his head with both of his hands. The world around him was distorted, and he could hear nothing but a string of numbers repeating again and again.

1776177617761776177617761776

The pain subsided and his vision restored back to normal. How long had it been? Junpei's head shot around to look at the room oncemore. Seven, June, and Santa were still searching around for clues. Surely it hadn't been that long then. But, what on earth was that? He turned back around to face the door. The keypad was now functioning, and had "1776" typed in on it.

Slowly Junpei brought his hand forward to hit the enter key on the pad. It shone with a green light, and the door was unlocked. All eyes were now on Junpei as they quickly huddled over to the door.

"How the hell did you open that? You hadn't even checked the rest of the room!" While Santa was blunt about it, it was what they were all thinking.

Junpei looked at all of them and wasn't sure what to say. How did the door open? He didn't enter that password, it was already in when he looked. He didn't want to worry them with the details of his black out. While he couldn't tell, Junpei's face had lost all color, looking sickly and drawn out.

"Jumpy, what's wrong?" June had most definitely noticed. Junpei really didn't want her to worry, or her fever might come back.

"No no no, i'm fine." Junpei tried his best to make himself look normal. While he trusted his group, he didn't know if they trusted him in the same way. Being caught having the solution to a puzzle, without having a way of knowing it? What if they thought he was Zero?

As his mind raced, Junpei didn't even notice Seven walking up and throwing open the door. The sound snapped him back and they all walked out of the room. Questions could be said later, their first priority was getting back to the others.

 _A/N:Story updates will be coming slower because of some real life issues, but don't worry, story will eventually be completed. It is very time consuming to edit the transcript and add in new things though, so please be patient._


	6. Prison

Outside of the shower room was a hallway that extended off to the left and right. At the right end was a large iron door.

Junpei avoided looking at the others and tried to keep silent. He was the one who had been doing the most work, solving the puzzles before the rest even had a chance. Now, he was knowing things he shouldn't have. Was he... Zero? It sounded impossible, but Seven was missing his memories. Did he suffer a similar fate? But, what would his reasons be for doing all this? Junpei had no idea what to think. No matter how he looked at it, he must've been here before, and participated in this game in the past. He knew the answers and no one else did. Every thought lead to ten other possibilities, and there was no way to confirm them except by playing the game.

They'd moved a few steps toward the door when Junpei heard the sound of metal on metal. They turned around. Seven was doing something to the door of the shower room.

"What're you doing, Seven?" Junpei was desperate to get his mind to think of something else.

"Well, I figure maybe we might wanna come back here sometime. So I stuck the broom in there to keep the door from shutting. All right, let's go."

With that, he stood up and began walking down the hallway. He brushed past Junpei and kept going. After a moment, the rest of them followed him. Before long, they found themselves at the large iron door. They had only been there for a moment when June spoke up.

"Jumpy, look..."

He turned. There, on the right side of the hallway, was a piece of paper attached to the wall. Junpei ran over and peeled it off.

"It's a map of the ship's interior..."

It said "C Deck" in the upper left corner. From what he could tell, it was a map of the floor they were on. There would be time to look at it later. Junpei folded the map and stuffed it into his pocket. Back at the door, the 4 of them lined up in front of it. Santa stepped forward. He grabbed hold of the door, and then turned to look back at the rest of them.

"Ready...? I'm gonna open it."

They nodded. Santa nodded back, and threw the door open. All 4 of them leapt through...

It took only a moment for them to realize where they were. They had been there only a short time ago... It was the large hospital room, filled with countless beds.

Lotus and Clover looked up as they entered. Ace was there as well, although he looked as though he had only just woken up. The moment they spotted Junpei, Lotus and Clover headed straight for him. As she neared him, Lotus drew back her hand, and slapped him, open-palmed, across the face.

"How could you do this to us?!" Her face was furious. She grabbed Junpei by the collar and shook him violently.

Clover didn't touch him, but the hate in her eyes was no less potent. It was Seven who stopped them.

"Knock it off! We've got bigger shit to worry about right now!" His deep voice echoed across the massive room.

Lotus glared at Seven, but let Junpei go after one last, vicious shake.

"What?"

"Go have a look. I stuck the screwdriver in the door. That door over there. The one without a long as the screwdriver's there, it can't shut, so you can get in there."

Seven also explained how they might find the shower room and how he'd used the broom to ensure that door remained open as well.

"Then you're saying we can go in there without passing through the numbered door?"

"Yeah, that's about the size of it."

"What the hell is in there?"

"You'll know when you see it."

Lotus and Clover looked at one another for a moment, then nodded and stepped through the door. By then, Ace had made his way to them, moving with the stiff, shuffling steps of someone who has only just awoken from a lengthy slumber.

"My goodness... I know I said I was sure you'd come back for me... I didn't think it would happen so soon, though." Ace shook his head weakly.

"Should I go as well?"

Seven nodded.

"Very well." Ace followed Lotus and Clover, with his stiff, tired gait.

The squeal of tortured metal made Junpei's teeth curl. It sounded like the noise a ghost would make. No matter how many times he heard it, he never got used to it. Every time, it put him on edge. It didn't help that there was a girl nearby who looked far more like a ghost than a living human should.

It was Clover. She sat on the edge of the bed, her head drooping listlessly onto her chest. Her eyes were blank, and stared across the room at nothing. Her breathing was slow and mechanical. Aside from the rise and fall of her chest, she didn't move. Junpei felt as if even a nudge might cause her to shatter into a thousand pieces.

"Snake was probably murdered. Chances are he was killed the same way the 9th Man was." Seven lowered his voice, likely in an effort to keep Clover from hearing what he had to say.

There were 4 other people in the room with Junpei and Seven. Ace, Santa, June, and Lotus. Seven looked at each one of them in turn, and continued.

"It's pretty straightforward. Not that hard to figure out how they did it. First, the killers got Snake to authenticate on the RED to open door 3. Then they shoved him into it, alone... And waited 9 seconds for the door to shut. Once that door shut, it was over for Snake, but he didn't give up. He probably knew it wouldn't do him any good, but he probably ran intothe shower room looking for the DEAD."

"It was a small chance, but it wasn't like he had anything to lose. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The detonator's only deactivated if everybody who authenticated when they went in uses the DEAD. And then 81 seconds after he was shoved in... That happened."

"I see... So that's what you meant by killers, huh. You need at least 3 people to open one of the numbered doors, including Snake. It wouldn't open for Snake and a single killer."

"Exactly. That means we're looking at multiple perps here."

Junpei crossed his arms and grunted.

"Well, just in case, I wanna make sure. Let's say you're right... When do you think Snake was killed?"

"When we all split up to look for the parts for the REDs... I think. Right after that was when we noticed he was gone."

"Then that means none of us have alibis. We were all off searching the rooms we'd been assigned, looking for those parts..."

"Yeah... That means anybody could be a killer."

"W-Wait a minute! What are you talking about?!" June seemed shocked.

"How can you say one of us is a killer so casually?!"

"Well, not just one of us. If I'm right, then at least two of us are murderers."

"Why don't you calm down a bit, Seven... What are you going to gain by being so suspicious? That's what Zero wants, you know." Ace had the natural attitude of a leader, and every time he spoke it forced everyone to pay attention.

"What...Zero wants?"

"Exactly. This game was set up by Zero, wasn't it? Any game has a winner and loser. Whoever makes it through door 9 is a winner, and those who don't are the losers. Zero is trying to make us fight against one another for that victory."

"Then you're saying that Zero is trying to split us up by making us fight each other?"

"Yes. That is why we can't let ourselves fall prey to suspicion. We have to trust one another, and form a strong bond of friendship. Otherwise, we'll end up ensnared by Zero's manipulations."

"Then, does that mean that...the person who killed Snake..."

"Yes. Almost certainly Zero himself. If there's anyone we should doubt, it should be Zero. He masterminded this game, and kidnapped all of us. Doesn't it seem reasonable that he would have killed Snake as well?"

Junpei hadn't really considered that. If Zero had killed Snake, then Zero was on the ship with them.

Of course he was. That was obvious. Zero was somewhere on the ship, but... Junpei had no idea where. Junpei mumbled to himself, lost in thought. While he toyed with the idea of himself being an amnesiac Zero, he didn't take it seriously. Something in him knew that he would never do such an evil thing.

"Where could Zero be hiding...?"

Suddenly, everyone went very quiet. The silence was cold and clammy, and Junpei could feel it crawling across his back and around his throat. Again, he heard the ghosting moaning noise. And moments later, a person who looked more ghost than human appeared.

It was Clover. She looked at the floor as she spoke, and her voice was a cold monotone.

"I think... I think Zero is...one of us..."

Every human body in the room froze. The only sound was the muffled rustling of breath. Eyes darted from face to face. One of those faces was the face of their jailer.

"Hmm... Well, that's possible. Like Clover said, Zero might be one of us."

"W-What are you saying, Jumpy?! Didn't you hear what Ace said?!"

"Exactly. I said we shouldn't suspect one another for no reason-" Ace was swiftly interrupted by Junpei, who now looked like he was on to something.

"No reason? I've got a great reason. The bracelets." He held out his left arm.

"Why are the bombs in our bodies connected to the bracelets? You're all thinking Zero's hiding somewhere, watching us, right? If he's doing that, then he could just detonate the bombs by remote control if someone did something they weren't supposed to. It would be a lot more precise, and a lot easier. But... If that's the case, then why is the bomb set off by the detonator in the bracelet?"

"Try applying the same ideas to the Nonary Game. All of the puzzles here run all by themselves. In other words, Zero doesn't have to be controlling them for the game to move forward. Why's that? Why would Zero bother to do something like that?"

Junpei let the question hang in the air, and looked at the others.

It was Santa who answered.

"So let's say you and Clover are right. Zero's one of us. If that's the case, then it'd be really hard for him to keep track of all of us, or control anything remotely. That's why all the puzzles run by themselves. That's what you're getting at, right?"

Junpei nodded.

"Seven, when we were talking earlier... You said any one of us could be Snake's killer, right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"All right then, I've got a question for you, Ace. You said something like "Zero must be the one who killed Snake", right?"

"Yes, something like that. I can't think of any other explanation."

"So what do we get if we combine those? They fit together pretty well, I think. Something like this... (Whoever killed Snake) = (Zero) = (one of us). Seven and Ace's theories aren't mutually exclusive. They actually complement each other pretty well. At least they do if Zero is one of us."

No one spoke. Their faces were grim, but Junpei wasn't sure if they believed him or not. Finally, Lotus spoke up.

"What were his motives?"

"His motives?"

"Yes. Isn't that pretty important? Why would Zero want to hide as one of us?"

"Oh... Well, that's because...um..."

Junpei choked.

He hadn't thought of that, and he had to be honest with himself... He had no idea.

"I...don't know..."

Lotus sighed.

"Well, so much for making a persuasive argument, Junpei."

"In other words, you had only circumstantial evidence."

"I don't really think that's enough to go on, you know...?"

Junpei was painfully aware of their eyes on him, and their disapproval.

He tried to find something else-anything else-to look at. Just when he felt he could bear it no longer- They heard a bell begin to ring. It was the clock at the central staircase.

"Three in the morning..." Santa's face was already showing signs of tiredness.

"Then we need to move, now. Seven, Clover, Junpei... I know how you feel, but you do understand that, right now, it's important we trust one another, don't you?"

Junpei couldn't bring himself to respond. He swallowed the words he wanted to say, and sighed. Seven and Clover remained silent. Their eyes were looking at something somewhere else, very far away.

"We must go! We have very little time left!"

Ace's words put their feet to moving. They all knew where they were going. Their next destination was Mercury. They stood in front of the elevators next to the stairs that led to the casino and the kitchen. Between the 2 elevators was a card reader with the Mercury symbol engraved on it. Junpei stood in front of it with the Mercury key card... He'd found the card while investigating the shower room.

He took a deep breath and slid the card through the reader. It made a small beep, and the lights on the reader blinked to life. Now, they were ready. 7 people, including Junpei, climbed onto the elevator. There were only 2 floor buttons they could push... The "C" and "Bottom" buttons. The rest were destroyed or did nothing when pushed.

Junpei hit the "Bottom" button. The door closed. Slowly, they began to move downward. Some time later, all 7 of them stepped off the elevator and onto the Bottom Deck.

They stepped off, and saw that the hallway to their right ended somewhere between 20 and 25 feet from them. The hallway in front of them was a dead end... But not a regular dead end. It was a numbered door. The number 2 was hastily painted on it, just like the rest.

Immediately they began to discuss who would go through it. Their earlier experiences had shown them that they would meet again, regardless of which numbered doors they took. As a result, there were no arguments this time.

Instead, they concerned themselves with who would be sent in to investigate what was beyond the door. The first to volunteer was Seven. Junpei followed suit, which meant Lotus was, by default, the 3rd member.

5 + 7 + 8 = 20 - 2 + 0 = 2

"All right, we're taking off."

"Okay. Please be careful."

"Jesus, you 2 are acting like you're married, you know that?"

June blushed. So did Junpei.

Perhaps in an attempt to hide his emotions, he quickly turned away to pull the lever on the RED. The door opened. As they'd come to expect, there appeared to be a short hallway on the other side.

"All right, let's go!" Lotus was the first through the door.

Seven was next, and Junpei brought up the rear.

Fortunately, it took them only moments to find the DEAD. It had been placed just inside the room, right next to the numbered door. They gathered around it and quickly scanned each of their bracelets. Junpei could feel his heart pounding against the inside of his ribs. Seven and Lotus were breathing hard and fast.

It was the 3rd time they'd been through the process, but they had yet to grow accustomed to it.

Not that Junpei wanted to... He planned to finish the game before he got a chance to let imminent death become commonplace.

Junpei looked around again. It was a short hallway, with 5 doors along the walls. There were 3 doors along the left wall, and a single one on the right. At the end of the hallway the 5th door was covered by a thick metal plate. Junpei didn't think they'd be able to open it.

After taking a look around the room himself, Seven spoke.

"All right, let's get started. I think we'd probably better split up. You two okay with that?"

"Yes, no problem."

"Sure thing."

Seven nodded to them and stepped into the room farthest to the end. Lotus looked at the doors for a moment, then headed for the one in the center. At last, Junpei was left alone.

"Well, I guess I'd better get started too."

He looked intently at the remaining three doors, and entered the one closest to the entrance. Immediately a single word entered his mind. Prison. This looked like a cell a criminal would stay in. Why would a boat have this? The bed could hardly be called a bed, the divider near the toilet hardly gave anyone some privacy, and the sink wasn't even functional. One thing that caught Junpei's attention however, was the lack of handle anywhere on the toilet. He then noticed something hanging from the ceiling beside it and gave it a tug. Yep, that was the handle.

Junpei took a few steps over to the sink and looked at his face in the mirror. This could never be the face of Zero. When he got his hands on the man behind it all, he'd tear him to shreds for putting Akane through all this. He put on a determined face, only for it to dissipate as quickly as it came. He felt the flood of pain rush through his entire body once more as the world around him spun. This time, the feeling was much more intense, and he began to lose his balance. Junpei fell backwards and cracked the back of his skull against the flimsy bed. His vision quickly fading, Junpei fell fast asleep.

He saw all eight of them, standing in line. All the Nonary Game's participants. Even the Ninth Man was there in the front. Junpei stood at the very end, and peered around the one in front of him to see what was in front. A fearsome lion awaited at the start of the line. One by one, the participants walked down the line to be devoured by the beast. Junpei knew not the reason, and his body would not listen to his commands. No matter what he did, all he could do was walk forward.

The lion consumed the ninth man, Snake, Clover, Santa, Seven, Lotus, and finally, June. Junpei desperately tried to do something. Anything at all. He couldn't even scream, or avert his eyes from what was taking place. Then, it was his turn. It was if they were all sheep to the slaughter, unable to prevent their fate.

There was no pain, but he felt the sensation of drowning. It was if water was seeping into his lungs and throughout his throat. Out of all of them, Junpei seemed to be the only one who could perceive what was happening. They made no noise, and their expressions were lifeless. He laid in the stomach of the beast, alongside his fallen comrades.

Seven and Lotus jumped back when Junpei awoke, screaming at the top of his lungs. The two of them were about to try and shake him back to consciousness and were not prepared such a reaction could take place.

Junpei's entire body was soaked in sweat. He had lost all color in his face, and his breaths was as shallow as Lotus's heart. There was a dull pain near the top of his head, but he felt much better than before.

"What the hell happened, Junpei?!" Seven looked at him with a face full of bewilderment.

While it had happened many times over the past few hours, Junpei still hated the feeling of eyes glaring at him. He shambled to his feet and looked at the mirror once more. The world was not spinning, and he did not feel dizzy. The time between incidents was shortening, and perhaps even intensifying.

After straightening his composure and fixing his hair with his hands, Junpei offered a reply.

"I...Passed out. Guess the stress just got me." He tried to give a fake laugh to play it off as something that wasn't important.

"Whatever, while you was busy sleeping, we did everything needed to get out of here. So c'mon." Lotus had a completely different attitude than Seven did about the situation.

"R-right..."

The two of them were about to leave the room, when they noticed that Seven wasn't following. He seemed to be focusing on something near the ground.

"Let's go Seven, we don't have a whole lot of time left on the clock."

Suddenly Seven was mumbling to himself. They were words Junpei didn'tunderstand... Seven's hoarse voice trailed off, and Junpei couldn't make out what he'd said. Seven's brow furrowed furiously, and he ground his teeth back and forth.

"It's...it's right there... I feel like I'm this close to remembering everything, but I just can't."

Seven stopped, frustrated. He pulled his hat off, and ran a hand through his hair. Then suddenly, he looked up, his eyes wide.

"That's right! An experiment! There was some kinda experiment going on on this ship!"

"An experiment?! What...sort of experiment?"

"They were...they were trying to control people! Or...or something like that..."

Junpei didn't know what to make of Seven's story. Instead, he simply stared as Seven continued.

"Aoi, Light, and Nona... Those were their names. Well, some of them. The kids that were there, in the experiment, I mean... I think there were...4 or 5 more... But I don't remember all their names. Yeah, that's right... That's why I'm here..."

Seven began to mumble to himself, and wander aimlessly about the room. He looked...confused. So far as Junpei could tell, the man was simply rambling, and there were odd twitches to his movements.

"Experiment... Cradle Pharmaceutical... Those kidnapped kids... Was I working that case...?"

Seven continued to mumble to himself about things that meant nothing to Junpei. Junpei didn't have any answers for him, of course. He couldn't understand what was happening to Seven. All he could do was wait. After a few minutes, Seven finally stopped. He crouched down and looked under the bed. His face registered mild surprise, and he began to mumble to himself again.

"The hole's gone...? No, maybe it was a different room. There's gotta be a ton of rooms on this boat that look just like this one..."

At last, Junpei could contain himself no longer.

"Hey, uh, what exactly do you remember? Well, maybe you could stop talking like a crazy person and tell me what's going on here?"

Seven stood up slowly.

"Well, it's not like I really remember everything. I've only got bits'n pieces, and they're scattered and don't make much sense..."

"I don't care. Tell me the bits and pieces, then!"

Junpei could feel it... Whatever Seven had remembered, it was important, very important.

Seven drew a large, muscled hand down, across his face. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, he spoke.

"From what I can remember, I think I was... A cop..."

"A cop?!"

"Yeah... I was looking for that group of kids that got kidnapped 9 years ago. You remember that, right? It was all over the news."

"Y-Yeah... I was still in school... I don't remember all the details, but I do remember some of it. I think it was a bunch of kids right around my age... They all just disappeared. Nobody knew why. It was all over TV and the newspapers, every day... So you're saying you were investigating it?

"Yeah, that's what it looks like. And I guess I found something... There was this medical company called "Cradle Pharmaceutical" that had something to do with those kids. After I figured that out, I managed to get some information out of somebody who worked for them. They told me a ship would be leaving that night, with all the kids on it. They were gonna be taken to some kinda big passenger ship somewhere out in the ocean."

And so, Seven had headed to the wharf. He kept to the shadows, and before long found the suspicious ship he'd been looking for. There were a number of human shapes moving near the ship. They were men in black suits.

Many of them were carrying large bags onto the ship. The bags... There was something about the way they moved as they were carried... There could be no mistake: There were human beings in those bags.

He had moved before he even realized he was going to. Out of the shadows he came, his gun already in his hand. He heard the words "Don't move", but they weren't his.

He felt metal touch the back of his head.

"Drop your gun," came the cold voice from behind him.

With the words, he felt the cold metal thing behind him press against his skull.

Slowly, Seven crouched down, and laid his gun on the ground. Then suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his neck. ...A needle.

Was it...some sort of drug? As he was thinking about that, Seven felt his face hit the cold concrete beneath him.

He could feel the chill of it seeping into him.

...

...

"Ugh... Damnit! Shit, my head hurts..."

Seven woke to find himself lying on a hard floor. He twisted his neck to peer around the room.

"Where am I..."

There was a small, shabby bed, and a dirty sink. A toilet with no stall or privacy of any sort...

As a cop, it was a place Seven had seen all too often.

"I'm in a cell, huh."

Opposite the toilet was a door set into the wall. Seven struggled to his feet and hobbled toward it. He gave the door a good shove, then another. Then tried pulling it. It didn't open.

Well, that was about what he'd expected. It wasn't likely that someone would put him in a cell only to leave it unlocked.

He threw himself against the door a few times, but to no avail.

"I knew it..."

Seven grumbled to himself as he moved back toward the bed. He sat down.

...

...

He sat there for a very long time. Just how long, he wasn't sure. At last, he began to nod off, and had nearly fallen asleep when he was roused by a distant voice.

"There...s! Over...! It's...9...!"

The voice was far away, very far away. Seven couldn't understand what it was saying.

Nonetheless, it was a voice, and a high one, most likely a child. His eyes shot open.

"Hur...! O...ere!" "...kay...ing!"

As he listened, he could pick out several different, distinct voices. There were at least 5 or 6, possibly more...

Where were the voices coming from?

He looked around the room, frantically. Perhaps the door? No! That wasn't it!

"What...go...ow?"

Was it coming from the left? Was it coming from...under the bed...? He grabbed the bed and flipped it up with ease.

There it was. There was a hole for ventilation in the wall where the bed had been, covered with a metal grate.

Seven lay down on his stomach and peered through the grate. He couldn't see anything... It was too dark.

Now that he'd found it, however, there could be no doubt, this was the sourceof the voices.

For a moment he was confused. Why were there children nearby? Then he remembered what the man from Cradle Pharmaceutical had told him...

How a ship would take the kidnapped children from the wharf to a waiting passenger liner out in the ocean...

Was Seven...on that passenger liner?

...

It didn't matter. What mattered was that he find a way to the children. Seven looked at the metal grate. Could he fit through that hole...?

He stuck his fingers through the grate and grabbed hold of it.

"Hhhhggh!" "Urrrrgghhh!" "UuuuurrrrrrrRRRRGGGHHH!" "Hrrrraah-!"

"*Pant* *Pant* *Pant*... Yeah! How'dya like that, you son-of-a-bitch!"

The dark square sat open before him. Seven wiped the sweat from his forehead and crawled inside.

Junpei waited for Seven to resume his story. The longer he waited, however, the clearer it became that Seven had no intention of doing so.

He had gone silent, and simply stared off into the air, his eyes blank.

"Hey... What happened after that?" He'd waited long enough.

But Seven shook his head.

"I don't... I don't remember what happens after that. I think I found some kinda door out of the duct... And I think I found some kids too..."

"Oh man... Why can't I remember what happened next...?"

"Oh man... What happened to the kids, Seven?! Did you save them?!"

"I dunno... I dunno if it was me... I just... I've got this feeling... I think one of the kids died. ...A girl, I think."

"Huh?"

Deep in his heart, Junpei felt something very cold.

Seven's head dropped, and Junpei saw on it a look of sadness the likes of which he had never seen on the man before. The large man's eyes blinked rapidly, as if he were fighting back tears, and he swallowed hard.

His sigh was like the melancholy setting of an old, abandoned building. He shook his head and spoke.

"Anyway, just... Please don't ask me any more, okay? I really don't remember anything else..."

After that, Junpei could hardly try to force any answers out of the otherman...

There was nothing more he could do.

Instead, Junpei turned his mind to trying to make sense of what Seven had told him.

The children who had been kidnapped 9 years before... Apparently, a company called Cradle Pharmaceutical had been behind the kidnappings, and had taken the children to the ship they were on now. They had been brought to the ship for an experiment. Something to do with controlling human beings, Seven had said.

The 16 children who'd been kidnapped were the subjects for the experiment. Seven had said 3 of their names were Aoi, Light, and Nona. That was the new information. He had also learned that Seven was, or had been, a police officer.

Still, there was little he could do with this new information. He'd learned nothing about the Nonary Game or Zero.

He had no idea why they had been brought to the ship that had been the site of those experiments 9 years before.

Junpei couldn't forget what Seven had said the purpose of the experiment had been... To control human beings!

Could such an absurd experiment really have been conducted?

Before long, Junpei realized he had spent quite some time deep in thought.

No time for that, he chided himself. They had solved the puzzle while he was asleep, it was time to leave.

They passed through the opened door and headed to the next room. Junpei jogged down the short staircase and looked around.

"What the hell is this place..."

The words had sprung unbidden to his lips, but it was clear why. Junpei shivered. Lotus and Seven reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped short, terrified.

"This room is really creepy..."

"I think we oughta get the hell out of here, now."

He jogged up the stairs on the opposite side of the room and shook the door on the wall next to the catwalk. It didn't open, and he muttered to himself.

"Figures..."

"It's locked, isn't it?"

"Yup. Dunno why I thought this one'd be any different."

Junpei looked around the room again. In the center of it was a chair. The back of it was covered with electrodes connected to a nest of wires. Beneath it was a strange glass panel. Junpei wasn't sure what it was for, but it made him uncomfortable.

Whatever might have been beyond the glass, Junpei couldn't tell... It was too dark.

Junpei turned to look at the right side of the room. There was a table covered with a piece of cloth.

Parts of the cloth were stained with something that looked suspiciously like blood.

On top of the table were a number of metal instruments. Junpei didn't know what they were for, and he had a feeling he didn't want to find out.

His mind began to imagine what could have taken place in that dark, cold room. The things he imagined were not pleasant.

Junpei shook his head in an attempt to clear it, and tried to focus on something else.

"Anyway, we don't want to stay here any longer than we got to. Let's figure out the puzzle and get the hell out of here. The only thing we can do is start up the machine." Junpei walked over to the control panel near the chair. He had no clue what to do.

"Well uh... Any chance you two know how to turn this thing on?" Junpei put on an exaggerated smile. He wanted to be like Ace and naturally lead people, but it typically ended up like this.

Seven shook his head, but Lotus walked over. She flipped a few switches and turned some knobs. The machine sprung to life in a manner of seconds.

Junpei and Seven were dumbfounded.

"How did you do that?" The two spoke at the same time. Before they could receive an answer, a message appeared on the screen.

"The restraining device is unlocked. Please seat subject in device. The message on the screen was disturbingly detached.

"Well, it's not going to work unless someone sits in it." Junpei knew it was all on their minds. Deep inside he hoped someone else would offer, but that was a cruel thing to think. The device was clearly meant for something nefarious.

"How ironic that this would be the situation in which this slim, beautiful body is useful."

"Lotus... Are you sure? I can sit in it, and you can solve-"

"Junpei's right. If we screw it up..." Seven couldn't bring himself to finish the thought. His eyes fell to the floor.

"I just don't want to stay in this room any longer than we have to... Go over to that screen and let's get this over with." After her words had made it clear that Lotus would book no argument, she turned and walked toward the chair without hesitation. But she did not sit down.

Despite what she had said, she did indeed feel hesitation. Her legs shook.

"Look... Do you think you could do me one last favor?"

"You're makin' me nervous..."

"Just listen. If something happens to me, I want you to tell my daughters that I loved them very much. No. Tell them that I will always love them."

"Daughters...?" Even though he didn't gave it much thought. Junpei realized that the participants might even have children they want to return home to. The thought of a family being broken because of a stupid game like this made him both sad and angry.

"You...you've got kids?"

"Yes, I do. I suppose they're about your age, Junpei. They're twins... I had them when I was young after...after some things happened. Their names are Nona and-"

"Wait! Nona!?" Junpei's words shot out before he even realized what he was saying. He remembered the story Seven had told him. Aoi, Light, and Nona...

Those were their names. Well, some of them. The kids that were there, in the experiment.

"Wh-What the hell? What's wrong with you?" Lotus took a step back from Junpei.

Seven looked just as shocked as Junpei. He blinked his eyes rapidly, as if he weren't sure if he was completely awake.

"No way... It couldn't... Lotus... Is your last name Kashiwabara?"

Lotus's eyes went wide.

"H-How do you know that..."

"Are you serious...? What the hell is this? There's no way you're that kid's mom..."

"That kid?! What do you mean "that kid"?! Why are you acting like you've met her!?"

Seven's brow furrowed.

"I have... I met one of your kids."

"When?!"

"9 years ago."

"Where?!"

"On this ship."

"Why were you-?!"

"It's not a short story..." Seven had hoped Lotus would have heard from the doorway when he initially told the story, but it seemed she didn't pay much attention to it.

"I don't care how long it is! Tell me, please! What happened here?!"

Seven glanced at Junpei, then turned back to Lotus and began to speak. It was the same story Junpei had heard only minutes before. Every detail...

...

...

...

At last, Seven finished. Lotus shook her head.

"Oh my God... Everything I've been looking for the last 9 years... The person who had all the answers was right here... 9 years ago, my daughters disappeared. Then, 9 days later, they came back. They never told me what had happened to them over those 9 days... I took them to the doctor, but I was told they hadn't been hurt in any way... Still, I was sure that they had been through something terrible."

"So I couldn't bring myself to force them to talk about it. If I did, then I'd force them to relive whatever horrors they'd been through. I didn't have any choice. I had to try to ignore it and move on..."

Junpei and Seven waited anxiously for the story to continue. This now meant that they weren't randomly grabbed for this game, but that they was specifically chosen for a reason.

"A few months passed... Gradually they started to act like they always had, before they disappeared. They smiled, and made jokes, and did all the silly things kids do. It got harder and harder for me to ask them about what had happened. How could I ask them to remember that? Eventually, I knew there was no way I could do it. But I'm still a mother. I couldn't simply forget that something terrible had happened to my children."

"So I decided I would investigate what had happened on my own. I would find out what had happened during those 9 missing days!"

"...What did you find out?" Seven hated to be asking questions at a time like this, but progress was being made.

"Nothing. The police pretended to be concerned, but they didn't do anything. Once the 16 children who'd gone missing came back, things were just... Swept under the rug... Even the media didn't talk about what had happened. I figured someone was probably paying or threatening them to keep their mouths shut."

"Cradle Pharmaceutical. No, probably something even bigger than that... Have you heard of them before?"

"No, that's the first time I've ever heard that name. Seven, how did you find out that Cradle Pharmaceutical was connected to the kidnappings in the first place?"

"I figured finding out whatever the victims had in common would lead me to the culprit. That's what any good cop does."

"What did they have in common?" Junpei felt a little out of the loop in the situation as he wasn't really connected to this like they was.

"Every single one of the kids who disappeared had gone to this one hospital at some point. The hospital was one of a bunch that were under the control of Cradle Pharmaceutical... After that, it was just about connecting the dots. For a while I was trying to get some kinda story outta the kids at the hospital. One of 'em told a weird story..."

"Have you heard about the Ganzfeld experiment? I guess all these kids had to go through it while they were at the hospital. I think it was passed off as some sort of counseling."

Seven cleared his throat and proceeded to explain the Ganzfeld experiment.

First, subjects Q and A are put into separate rooms, far away from one another.

Then a series of video images are shown to subject Q, who is told to send the images to subject A by thinking about them.

Subject A, on the other hand, is put in a large reclining chair and given a blindfold.

With their senses cut off, A is asked to guess what images Q is looking at.

"Oh, yes, I've heard of that. It's a famous telepathy experiment, isn't it?"

Telepathy... Telepathy...

Junpei rolled the word over in his mind.

"I don't know if any of the telepathy stuff really exists... But maybe someone from Cradle Pharmaceutical bought into it..."

Seven had been thinking hard for the last several minutes, and finally spoke.

"Even if that is the case... I still don't get how that has anything to do with any of this. The Nonary Game, Zero, why we were kidnapped... What does any of that have to do with telepathy? I know I brought all this up, but... I have no idea. Maybe none of this stuff is connected after all..."

Then, in that moment of silence, a cold voice echoed down from the ceiling.

"No subject has been detected. Unless a subject is detected within 60 seconds, all power will be shut down. System recovery is estimated to take 1 hour. If you wish to proceed with the experiment, please seat subject in the restraining device." A booming speaker spoke.

"Okay. I'm going, I'm going. Just hurry up and get it over with. Junpei! I'm counting on you!"

"R-Right!"

Lotus sat down on the chair. Junpei looked at her one last time, then made his way to the monitor.

"Lotus, please, tell me right away if you feel anything...weird..."

"You worry too much. Now get on with it and be a man, or June's going to leave you."

Lotus was putting on the best act she could manage, but her legs were shaking so much that if she hadn't been sitting, she likely would have fallen down. Failure was not acceptable.

Junpei took one last deep breath and stared at the monitor.

"The experiment has concluded. The door will now unlock."

A audible click confirmed the message.

"Releasing subject from restraining device."

Junpei immediately ran over from the controls to the device.

"Lotus, a-are you all right?"

"Yes, I am. I'm glad nothing bad happened, but I do think my life just got a little shorter. Let's get out of here now. Being a guinea pig is not for me."

The puzzle wasn't too difficult. It was sort of like a videogame, so Junpei didn't have much difficulty with it. However, the penalty of failing made his heart race the whole time he was doing it. Now that they completed it, they were free to leave.

The group of three walked over to the exit and all exhaled a long sigh of relief.


	7. Revelation

Outside of the room, a hallway led off to their left. With nowhere else to go, they started down it. It turned left twice before they saw the elevator. In silence, they jogged up to it.

Junpei pushed the "C" button. The elevator motor ground away, and before long they found themselves once again on C Deck.

The door opened, and they stepped off. They'd expected to find 4 other people waiting for them. There were none. Something in the pit of Junpei's stomach stirred. He tried to forget the feeling, and took off down the long hallway before him. Akane would be fine, he would make sure of it.

Seven and Lotus followed at a run. They ran, and ran, and ran. The hallway seemed endless.

Their destination had already been decided. The door behind the central staircase... There was a Sun symbol engraved on the keyhole of that door...

And Junpei had the Sun key in his pocket. That key would open the door. It had to.

That was why they ran for the central staircase. They had run for quite some time when they arrived at the door that ended the hallway.

Junpei stopped. He laid his hand on the doorknob, his breathing heavy.

"Hold on a sec there. We don't have the key for this one yet, right?" Seven laid a hand on his arm as Junpei held the knob.

There is the Jupiter symbol engraved over the keyhole. Seven was right. They had no Jupiter key.

"Then we can't open this door... The Sun door's gotta be just on the other side of this, you know...?" Frustrated, he twisted the doorknob. The door opened.

"Hey! It opened! The others must have found the Jupiter key!" As he spoke, he shoved the door the rest of the way open. They rushed through, and stopped cold.

The terrible scene before them made their blood run cold.

Three people lay dead on the floor, covered in blood. Clover, Ace, and Santa.

Junpei felt a cold sweat trickle down his spine. He couldn't breathe. His legs shook. His body felt cold, deathly cold... But his blood was boiling hot.

He could feel his mind begin to fade... He couldn't think, he couldn't concentrate... His mind was...blank...

"Wh-What the hell... What the hell happened...?" Seven's voice was weak and broken.

He edged toward the bodies, his movements stiff. He bent down over Clover, and pressed his fingers to her wrist.

"Nothing... She's dead..."

Suddenly, Lotus moved. Before he understood what was happening, her hand was in Junpei's vest pocket.

"H-Hey! What're you doing?!" He leapt back.

Lotus looked up at him, terrified.

"The key! Give me the Sun key...!"

"W-Why...?"

"Why do you think?! We have to get out of here before the murderer comes back!"

The murderer... The murderer... Once again, Junpei looked at the dead bodies. Santa...Clover...and Ace... That meant that the person who had killed them was...

...

No... No, it couldn't be true. Before Junpei could react, Lotus dove back into his pocket, and came out with the key.

"Let's go!"

Without waiting for Seven or Junpei, she ran, straight for the central staircase.

They followed.

Junpei shut his eyes and swallowed his emotions. Mourning would have to wait. Soon they stood in front of the door.

Lotus shoved the Sun key into the keyhole, and twisted it, hard.

But... Nothing.

"What happened?"

"Nothing... Nothing happened! I didn't feel it unlock!"

"Oh no... Is it the wrong key?"

"I don't know... Maybe..." Lotus sighed, defeated, and leaned against the doorknob.

She felt it twist/ A small gap appeared between the door and the frame.

"You mean...the door was already unlocked...?"

With so many thoughts racing through the group's minds, this was the least of their worries.

Lotus took a deep breath and slowly opened the door the rest of the way. They stepped inside. In front of them was another hallway.

It stretched out toward the bow of the ship. They began to run. Faster and faster they ran, trying desperately to reach the end of the hallway. A few seconds later, they were there.

In front of them stood a massive metal door. They were all breathing heavily as Junpei spoke.

"What the hell is this door?! I can't see anything that looks like a doorknob or switch or lever or card reader or...or...or anything! How the fuck are we supposed to open this?!"

"We don't have a choice. We're gonna have to go back." Despite the situation, Seven still maintained a level head. Perhaps it was experience after being a cop.

"No! No! I'm not going back there! There's a murderer back there!"

There was more stark terror in Lotus's voice than authority. She was almost begging.

"But I don't see any other doors..."

As he spoke, Seven stepped toward the door in front of them, as if to illustrate that it was the only door. It opened. Nothing surprising. A simple automatic door.

"Look, guys, I've got a really bad feeling about all this. The other doors were already unlocked, and this one's automatic... We haven't seen anything like this before..."

How could their situation possibly get worse? Three people were already dead!

They'd hit the bottom, Junpei told himself. There was nowhere to go but up. He stepped through the door...

And whatever hope Junpei had managed to summon disappeared.

In the middle of the room was Akane Kurashiki, lying in a pool of her own blood.

No... No no no no no... It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. It was impossible. Utterly impossible. It was a dream. It had to be a dream. a nightmare. Yes, it was a nightmare, and if he could just wake up/ He was seeing things. Yes, that was it, this was a hallucination.

A lie. It wasn't real. It wasn't real...

It wasn't real...right? June...

No! No, the code names meant nothing now!

Kanny... Kanny!

"Kanny!"

Junpei cried out and leapt through the door. He flew to her side, his heart like a stone in his chest.

"Kanny! Kanny! Hang on!"

Junpei swept her up, and shook her by the shoulder.

She moaned, and her eyes fluttered open, but only barely.

"Kanny!"

"Jumpy...?"

Her face was pale, and her lips were dry and cracked. Her eyes were blank and cloudy. They stared straight at Junpei, but saw nothing.

Junpei put his hand against the small of her back to hold her up. It felt warm and...wet.

He lifted his hand up. It was covered in blood.

"Oh man... Kanny... What the hell happened to you... How did this happen...?"

It was all he could do not to break into tears. This game was about to claim the life of the person he cherished most, but it wouldn't take him.

"Jumpy... I'm sorry..." Her voice was thin, a miniscule thread that was the only thing keeping her with him.

"I...I might not make it."

"N-No way! No way am I gonna let you die! I'm gonna save you, I promise!" Junpei's voice began to crack, and he had difficulty speaking. Tears ran down his face at a rapid pace. As soon as one was gone, another took it's place.

"Thank you, Jumpy... Thank you so much... For everything... I was...really happy... To see you again, Jumpy... Really...happy..."

"You've... You've just gotta hang on, all right Kanny!? You... You..."

What could he do?! He looked up from Kanny desperate for something, anything. There was always a solution. There was always an answer.

Then he saw it. A small submarine...

A submarine?! What on Earth was a submarine doing there?! No, that didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except saving Kanny. That was the only thing he wanted. Junpei turned his head back to look down at her.

"Hang on, all right? There's a submarine over there. I'm gonna go see if it works.

"No... Don't go... Please, don't go... Please, just...stay with me, okay...? I want to...be close to you, Jumpy... When...when I..."

"Kanny..."

It was too much for him. Knowing that fate had done this to him, to put him in a situation where he could do nothing but observe.

He had lost.

"Jumpy, did you know... You...meant a lot to me...when we were kids... I've liked you...for a long time, Junpei... A really...long...time..."

Junpei's vision had gone blurry. It took him a moment to realize his eyes were filled with tears.

He could feel a piercing point of heat deep in his heart, like a white-hot flame.

"Jumpy, do you remember...how we hung out a lot when we were...kids? We went to the pool... And to...the fair... Do you remember...playing snowball at the school...? They're all memories I'll...never forget... All of those moments are...treasures...to me... But I also wanted to...go to a lot of other places with you... A lot more... But...that...won't happen...now..."

"No! I mean yes! Yes, it will happen! We'll go all sorts of places, Kanny! You hear me?! I promise! We'll go wherever you want!"

"...Really...?"

"Yeah, really. I swear."

"That makes me happy... Really...happy..." She said it to herself, over and over, a weak smile creasing her tired face.

"I feel...sleepy..."

"No, Kanny! Don't fall asleep!"

"Thank you...Jumpy... Thank you...so much..." Her eyes were slowly closing.

Junpei screamed, even as he felt his throat go hoarse.

"Kanny! Kanny! Kaaaaannnnyyyyy!"

Time passed. Junpei wept, curled around Kanny's body. He knew not how long he stayed there, nor did he care.

He cried and cried until he had no tears left. When the last tear fell, Junpei was no more. His body remained, but only as an empty shell.

Somewhere, he heard a bell ring. It was the clock at the central staircase. It rang 5 times, then faded.

Quietly, gently, softly, he set Kanny down on the floor. Slowly, Junpei stood. Only then did he realize that Seven and Lotus had not followed him. Where had they gone?

Slowly, he looked around the room. There was nothing. No sign that they had ever been there. It felt as though every part of Junpei's body was made of lead. Slowly, he made his way to the door he'd come through.

As he approached it, it opened, sliding apart with a sound like grinding stone. Junpei passed through the gate and into the hallway.

His heart rattled in his chest, an empty lifeless thing. It had been so utterly broken that there was nothing left to feel.

When he saw their bodies, he simply stared.

It was a lake-a sea-of blood. Two bodies lay in it.

There was no need to check. There was no breath left in them. His eyes lit on Lotus's wrist.

Her bracelet... It was gone.

He stared. It meant nothing to him. He didn't care anymore. He couldn't care anymore.

Junpei's body felt numb. A part of him knew the lump of lead in his chest had once been a heart. He couldn't quite remember what it had been for.

Tears poured from his eyes in great streams. He wasn't sure why. He gave up trying to make them stop.

He turned around. The door opened again, and slowly, numbly, he walked through. He kept walking. Why stop?

An object set in motion, simple inertia carried him forward. Eventually, he found himself in front of the submarine.

His arm reached for the hatch, and a voice yelled through out his entire body.

"Turn around!"

Deep inside, he felt it. An urge to live. An urge to carry on. No matter what, he could not let Akane's death go to waste. He would be the survivor of the Nonary Game.

Like a flash of light, Junpei spun around and instinctively caught a knife aimed at his chest. It felt like his body moved on it's own, like the times before. He knew things he shouldn't, and now it would save him.

His eyes widened as he saw his assailant. The lion that consumed them all... Ace. His clothes were covered in blood, but he had no wounds. He had tricked them by playing dead. In one hand he held the knife, and in his other he held Lotus's bracelet.

Junpei wanted to ask him why he did it, but a new thought appeared in his head. It was Ace that killed Akane. It was all his fault. He robbed them of the opportunity of living a happy life together. In just a few minutes, Ace had managed to take everything from him.

But there was one thing he refused to be taken. His life.

Ace was physically much stronger than Junpei, but Junpei had the leverage advantage, and just barely managed to make him drop the knife. Quickly Junpei put his back to the submarine, and that was when he remembered something else. He felt the shape of the kitchen knife he took earlier pressing against him. Hurridly his hands shot out to retrieve it.

"Out of all the participants, I never expected you to be the one to put up a fight." Ace had kept his calm leaderly voice, but his face was twisted in a mad manner.

"It's surprising how easy a knife can slip inside of a body. None of them was able to put up much of a resistance. Clover and Santa didn't see it coming. Seven and Lotus were so surprised at seeing a dead man walking, neither could stop me. And June... Well, I think I did my best work on her. The whole time she screamed "Junpei! Junpei!" again and again. But even you are just a man. You're not God, you can't undo the past, and you have failed."

There was so many things to think about, but none of them mattered. Junpei needed to fight. For Akane. He would live.

As soon as Ace's words left his mouth, Junpei launched forward with the knife in hand. He grasped it awkwardly, as he never before used a knife with the intent of harm. While Ace had not expected Junpei to have a weapon of his own, he was still able to dodge the attack and in the same motion, grab the knife he was disarmed of earlier.

Junpei was on the advance. For the first time, he was the aggressor. This level of adrenaline was unknown to him. The feeling that any moment here, he could be killed, and that would be the end of it. The twenty one years of his life could all be lost with a single swipe of a knife. It instilled a fear in his heart, but also, determination.

The Submarine room was not very large, and certainly not met for fighting. Ace was unable to go on the offense and was forced to slowly back up as Junpei continued his assault. Fighting near the water was a disadvantage for the both of them. Ace kept a methodical pace as he dodged the kitchen knife. Junpei was having a hard time trying to strike him, as his knife was not very long, nor very sharp. Eventually, he would run out of energy, and then Ace would easily be able to overpower him. He had to end this fast.

They made two circles around the room. Junpei could already feel his arms starting to tire as he endlessly swung. A plan began to surface in the back of his head. It was the only way for him to gain the upper hand. He bolted around to the other side of Ace and made a wide sweeping strike. However, that was exactly the moment Ace was waiting for. Ace brought his knife diagonally across Junpei's chest twice at the same time he swung. Junpei's knife only pierced Ace's clothes, but the cut he received was far worse.

He felt no pain. No amount of cuts would do him in just yet. Just a flesh wound.

The look on Ace's face made Junpei crack a wry smile. Just as he said before, how could he put up a fighting chance?

As fast as his legs could take him, Junpei thrust forward with the knife aimed at Ace's chest. If his body could do this one last thing, that's all he would need.

Ace instinctively took steps backwards. His eyes were so focused on the movement of the knife, he failed to see what was at his feet.

Akane's corpse.

Caught off guard and in the middle of tripping, Ace was unable to avoid Junpei's thrust. The two men fell to the floor. Junpei had deeply buried his knife into the lion's chest. He would not be devoured. Even in death, Akane had saved him.

The feeling was indescribable. The amount of endorphins and adrenaline running through his body gave him a completely new experience. Akane did not die for nothing. A small amount of luck had also assisted him.

Ace began to cough up blood. His grip loosened on his weapon, and it fell to the floor. Junpei rose up, and slowly made his way over to the submarine. The pain from his cuts soon began to surface, and his body felt like lead. Every step was a challenge.

He reached for the hatch, when he heard a strange noise. Was that a...Click? Junpei went to cock his head, when his head was filled with a loud noise, and his legs gave out beneath him. With the little strength he had left, he turned his body over. There was Ace, holding a smoking golden revolver in his hand, before slumping forward and dropping it.

How... How did he get a gun? Junpei was unable to move. There was nothing that could be done.

"I'm sorry, Kanny..." Junpei's words were barely a whisper, as the remains of his tears ran down his face.

In the end, the lion consumed the ninth son.

A loud noise startled Junpei awake, and his eyes snapped open. As they adjusted to the light, he realized that he didn't recognize his surroundings.

Junpei, powered by confusion, instantly shot out of bed; only to immediately have his head connect with something metal.

He rolled over and threw out his hand to steady himself, but he found himself groping at empty air.

His balance lost, and his still-fuzzy mind struggling to understand what was going on, Junpei tumbled down to the cold, grey floor.

He stared at the ceiling of the room, and contemplated the feeling he was experiencing.

It felt as if he knew things he shouldn't.

 _AN:Oh boy do I love the sub end. I felt compelled to change it to what you see here for a few reasons. I am most definitely not confident in my ability to write a story, and I know nothing of the technical aspects of writing one, but this has been so much fun for me. Apologies if you dislike it, I don't really blame you. I used to be a perfectionist with my writing, but that got me absolutely nowhere. My advice to those that desire to write, is to simply write. I do not feel as if this is a good story at all, but what matters to me is that I managed to write something at all. Thank you for your time. It really has been a blast._


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